- THE CONCLUSION OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN AND PLANS FOR FUTURE COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIONS

[Senate Hearing 117-939]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

S. Hrg. 117-939

THE CONCLUSION OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN AND PLANS FOR
FUTURE COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIONS

=======================================================================

HEARING

before the

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

__________

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

__________

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services

GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT

Available via: http://www.govinfo.gov

_______

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
59-563 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

JACK REED, Rhode Island, Chairman JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TOM COTTON, Arkansas
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
TIM KAINE, Virginia JONI ERNST, Iowa
ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia RICK SCOTT, Florida
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
MARK KELLY, Arizona TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama

Elizabeth L. King, Staff Director
John D. Wason, Minority Staff Director

(ii)

C O N T E N T S

September 28, 2021

Page

The Conclusion of Military Operations in Afghanistan and Plans 1
for Future Counterterrorism Operations.

Member Statements

Statement of Senator Jack Reed................................... 1

Statement of Senator James Inhofe................................ 7

Witness Statements

Austin, The Honorable Lloyd J., III, Secretary of Defense........ 9

Milley, General Mark A., USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 15
Staff.

Questions for the Record......................................... 125

(iii)

THE CONCLUSION OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN AND PLANS FOR
FUTURE COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIONS

----------

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

United States Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room
SD-G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Jack Reed
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Committee Members present: Senators Reed, Shaheen,
Gillibrand, Blumenthal, Hirono, Kaine, King, Warren, Peters,
Manchin, Duckworth, Rosen, Kelly, Inhofe, Wicker, Fischer,
Cotton, Rounds, Ernst, Tillis, Sullivan, Cramer, Scott,
Blackburn, Hawley, and Tuberville.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED

Chairman Reed. Let me call the hearing to order.
First, an administrative action. Since a quorum is now
present, I ask the Committee to consider a list of 2,993
pending military nominations. Included in this list is the
nomination of General Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, U.S. Air Force,
for a reappointment to the grade of general, and to be
Commander of U.S. Transportation Command. All of these
nominations have been before the Committee for the required
length of time.
Is there a motion to favorably report this list of 2,993
pending military nominations to the Senate?
Is there a second?
Female Voice. Second.
Chairman Reed. All in favor, please say aye.
[Chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Reed. The motion carries. Thank you.
[The list of nominations considered and approved by the
committee follows:]

Military Nominations Pending with the Senate Armed Services Committee
Which are Proposed for the Committee's Consideration on September 28,
2021.
1. General Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF to be general and
Commander, US Transportation Command (Reference No. 237)
2. In the Army there are 169 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Daniel C. Alder) (Reference No. 508)
3. In the Army there are 128 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Eric R. Adams) (Reference No. 509)
4. In the Army there are 108 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Michelle M. Agpalza) (Reference No. 510)
5. In the Army there are 14 appointments to the grade of colonel
(list begins with Thomas K. Brenton) (Reference No. 511)
6. Col. Edward D. Casey, ANG to be brigadier general (Reference
No. 619)
7. BG Linda S. Hurry, USAF to be major general (Reference No.
621)
8. Col. Carla D. Riner, ANG to be brigadier general (Reference
No. 622)
9. Capt. Max G. McCoy, Jr., USN to be rear admiral (lower half)
(Reference No. 659)
10. Col. Richard G. Adams, ANG to be brigadier general (Reference
No. 742)
11. LTG Karsten S. Heckl, USMC to be lieutenant general and
Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, Headquarters,
US Marine Corps (Reference No. 959)
12. MG David J. Julazadeh, USAF to be lieutenant general and
Deputy Chief of Staff for Capability Development, Supreme Allied
Command Transformation (Reference No. 960)
13. In the Air Force there are 2 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Ingrid C. Kaat) (Reference No. 961)
14. In the Air Force there is 1 appointment to the grade of
lieutenant colonel (Angelica Hawrysiak) (Reference No. 962)
15. In the Air Force there are 176 appointments to the grade of
major (list begins with Katherine A. Abbott) (Reference No. 963)
16. In the Air Force there are 54 appointments to the grade of
major (list begins with Jon R. Alexander) (Reference No. 964)
17. In the Air Force there are 29 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel (list begins with Timothy James Anderson) (Reference
No. 965)
18. In the Air Force there are 8 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Brad C. Bordes) (Reference No. 966)
19. In the Air Force there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Sarah E. Isbill) (Reference No. 967)
20. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Jose E. Santos-Martinez) (Reference No. 968)
21. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Donna J. Broussard) (Reference No. 969)
22. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (Stephen W. Chu) (Reference No. 970)
23. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Jason R. Bradley) (Reference No. 971)
24. In the Army Reserve there are 2 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with David W. Lewis) (Reference No. 972)
25. In the Army Reserve there are 10 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Paul E. Boccio) (Reference No. 973)
26. In the Army Reserve there are 12 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Dennis M. Bishop) (Reference No. 974)
27. In the Army Reserve there are 2 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Philip N.R. Estes) (Reference No. 975)
28. In the Army Reserve there are 7 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Kim R. Clidas) (Reference No. 976)
29. In the Army there are 29 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Kelsy L. Abell) (Reference No. 977)
30. In the Army there are 86 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Brian J. Ahern) (Reference No. 978)
31. In the Army there are 161 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Anthony W. Adams) (Reference No. 979)
32. In the Army there are 150 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Marjorie Acsenvil) (Reference No. 980)
33. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Malik J. Freeman) (Reference No. 981)
34. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of colonel
(Richard J.H. Gash) (Reference No. 982)
35. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of major
(Lucretia C. Portwine) (Reference No. 983)
36. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (Shilo S. Velasquez) (Reference No. 985)
37. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (Daniel E. Torres) (Reference No. 986)
38. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (Andrew Garcia IV) (Reference No. 987)
39. In the Army Reserve there are 5 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with James L. Fuhriman) (Reference No. 988)
40. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Mercedes Murillo) (Reference No. 989)
41. In the Army Reserve there are 9 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Kathryn L. Adams) (Reference No. 990)
42. In the Army Reserve there are 19 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with James E. Adkins, Jr.) (Reference No. 991)
43. In the Army Reserve there are 5 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with David J. Adam) (Reference No. 992)
44. In the Army Reserve there are 3 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Travis T. Elder) (Reference No. 993)
45. In the Army Reserve there are 2 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Karen M. Hansen) (Reference No. 994)
46. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
commander (Spiros Kulubis) (Reference No. 995)
47. MG Lance K. Landrum, USAF to be lieutenant general and Deputy
Chairman, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Military Committee
(Reference No. 1074)
48. Col. Matthew S. Reid, USMC to be brigadier general (Reference
No. 1075)
49. VADM Colin J. Kilrain, USN to be vice admiral and Assistant
to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Reference No. 1078)
50. In the Air Force there are 11 appointments to the grade of
major (list begins with Nicole Marie Bermudez Beck) (Reference No.
1080)
51. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of major
(Bryan T. Jack) (Reference No. 1081)
52. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Marci J. Sam) (Reference No. 1082)
53. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of major
(Jennifer M.A. Bromm) (Reference No. 1083)
54. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Travis C. Carpenter) (Reference No. 1084)
55. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (Michael C. Wallet) (Reference No. 1085)
56. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Shawn D. Wray) (Reference No. 1086)
57. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of major
(Jordan L. Woodburn) (Reference No. 1087)
58. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of colonel
(Corey M. James) (Reference No. 1088)
59. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (David Melendez) (Reference No. 1089)
60. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (John C. Boyle) (Reference No. 1090)
61. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of major
(Jennifer N. Pendleton) (Reference No. 1091)
62. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of colonel
(Kevin A. Poole) (Reference No. 1092)
63. In the Army Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
colonel (Daniel J. Carlson) (Reference No. 1093)
64. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of major
(Dmitriy Kalantarov) (Reference No. 1094)
65. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
commander (William T.T. Chen) (Reference No. 1095)
66. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of captain
(Craig A. Clutts) (Reference No. 1096)
67. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of captain
(Christopher J. Goodson) (Reference No. 1097)
68. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
commander (Brett E. Grady) (Reference No. 1098)
69. In the Navy Reserve there is 1 appointment to the grade of
captain (Ignacio I. Mendiguren) (Reference No. 1099)
70. In the Army there are 5 appointments to the grade of colonel
(list begins with David O. Anglin) (Reference No. 1100)
71. In the Army there are 63 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Lito D. Amande) (Reference No. 1101)
72. In the Army Reserve there are 2 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Daniel C. Estaville) (Reference No. 1102)
73. In the Army Reserve there are 18 appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with George W. Boguslawski) (Reference No. 1103)
74. In the Army there are 21 appointments to the grade of colonel
(list begins with Douglas F. Baker, Jr.) (Reference No. 1104)
75. In the Army there are 33 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel (list begins with David S. Bickell) (Reference No.
1105)
76. In the Army there are 6 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Victoria M. Adame) (Reference No. 1106)
77. In the Navy there are 19 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Hanif K. Bent) (Reference No.
1107)
78. In the Navy there are 24 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Twyla M. Arbuckle) (Reference
No. 1108)
79. In the Navy there are 45 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Aaron M. Ackerman) (Reference
No. 1109)
80. In the Navy there are 5 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Daniel A. Dierks) (Reference No.
1110)
81. In the Army there is 1 appointment to the grade of lieutenant
colonel (Sean P. Mahoney) (Reference No. 1111)
82. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of commander
(Wajahat Ali) (Reference No. 1112)
83. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of commander
(Mason P. Jones) (Reference No. 1113)
84. In the Navy there is 1 appointment to the grade of commander
(Jarrod M. Trant) (Reference No. 1114)
85. In the Navy there are 97 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Dannemarc Atis) (Reference No.
1115)
86. In the Navy there are 83 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Samuel O. Adjei) (Reference No.
1116)
87. In the Navy there are 36 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Peter L. Agdamag) (Reference No.
1117)
88. In the Navy there are 56 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Moronkeji S. Aderibigbe)
(Reference No. 1118)
89. In the Navy there are 3 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Leonardo D. Calderon) (Reference
No. 1119)
90. In the Navy there are 225 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Susana Agudelouribe) (Reference
No. 1120)
91. In the Navy there are 48 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Marilyn A.H. Andersen)
(Reference No. 1121)
92. In the Navy there are 114 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Michael S. Ackman) (Reference
No. 1122)
93. In the Navy there are 46 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Ashley M. Belyea) (Reference No.
1123)
94. In the Navy there are 14 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Devin M. Arneson) (Reference No.
1124)
95. In the Navy there are 18 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Colin A. Barnard) (Reference No.
1125)
96. In the Navy there are 14 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Jeremy M. Bullard) (Reference
No. 1126)
97. In the Navy there are 55 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Matthew D. Akers) (Reference No.
1127)
98. In the Navy there are 46 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Brian T. Abe) (Reference No.
1128)
99. In the Navy there are 37 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Macbride J. Abeasi) (Reference
No. 1129)
100. In the Navy there are 67 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Nathan J. Admiraal) (Reference
No. 1130)
101. In the Navy there are 74 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Andrew M. Adams) (Reference No.
1131)
102. In the Navy there are 2 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Carl A. Grover) (Reference No.
1132)
103. In the Navy there are 44 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Christopher S. Anderson)
(Reference No. 1133)
104. In the Navy there are 38 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Matthew C. Abare) (Reference No.
1134)
105. In the Navy there are 23 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Karima Ayesh) (Reference No. 1135)
106. In the Navy there are 18 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Emilee K. Baldini) (Reference No. 1136)
107. In the Navy there are 41 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Tuesday L. Adams) (Reference No. 1137)
108. In the Navy there are 54 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Scott E. Adams) (Reference No. 1138)
109. In the Navy there are 25 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Christopher A. Adams) (Reference No. 1139)
110. In the Navy there are 108 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Adeniyi S. Alatise) (Reference No. 1140)
111. In the Navy there are 23 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Jon A. Angle) (Reference No. 1141)
112. In the Navy there are 50 appointments to the grade of captain
and below (list begins with Carl K. Bodin) (Reference No. 1142)
113. In the Navy there are 38 appointments to the grade of
commander (list begins with Ebenezer Aniagyei) (Reference No. 1143)
114. Col. James D. Brantingham, USAF to be brigadier general
(Reference No. 1175)
115. BG Jeffrey C. Coggin, USAR to be major general (Reference No.
1176)
116. MG Xavier T. Brunson, USA to be lieutenant general and
Commanding General, I Corps (Reference No. 1177)
117. BG Gregory J. Gagnon, USAF to be brigadier general (Reference
No. 1178)
118. RADM(lh) Jeffrey S. Scheidt, USN to be rear admiral
(Reference No. 1182)

_______________________________________________________________________

TOTAL: 2,993

Good morning. The Committee meets today to discuss the end
of American military operations in Afghanistan. After nearly 20
years of war, enormous sacrifice by American and coalition
military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel and vast United
States investment, the Afghan state has failed and the Taliban
has taken control. We need to understand why and how.
As part of this hearing, we will seek to understand the
factors that contributed to the Taliban's rapid takeover of the
country and the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and
Security Forces. While there is a temptation to close the book
on Afghanistan and simply move on to long-term, strategic
competition with China and Russia, we must capture the lessons
of the last two decades to ensure that our future
counterterrorism (CT) efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere
continue to hold violent extremists at bay.
I know that much of this hearing will focus on our final
months in Afghanistan. I think it is equally important,
however, that this Committee takes a step back and examines the
broader 2-decade mission that shaped the outcome we face today.
Our withdrawal this summer and the events surrounding it did
not happen in a vacuum. The path that led to this moment was
paved with years of mistakes, from our catastrophic pivot to
Iraq, to our failure to handle Pakistan's support for the
Taliban, to the flawed Doha agreement signed by President
Trump. The Members of this Committee and the witnesses before
us have overseen chapters of war that spanned four presidential
administrations, both Democratic and Republican, and we owe the
American people an honest accounting. I hope that this hearing
will be frank and searching, so that future generations of
Americans will not repeat our mistakes.
Our witnesses today are Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary
of Defense; General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chief of
Staff (JCS); and General Frank McKenzie, Commander of U.S.
Central Command (CENTCOM). I welcome each of you and thank you
for your many years of service.
I also want to commend and thank our military men and women
for their heroic efforts to evacuate more than 124,000 American
citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants, and
other at-risk Afghans over 17 days in chaotic and perilous
conditions--a remarkable accomplishment. We especially honor
the brave American service men and women were killed and
wounded while selflessly protecting those seeking safety.
So how did we get here? There are countless decisions and
factors that could be pointed to, but I would highlight a few
that clearly paved the way.
Early in the war, we did achieve our original
counterterrorism objective of significantly degrading al Qaeda
in Afghanistan. Over time, however, that mission morphed into
convoluted counterinsurgency and nation building. While the
United States presence in Afghanistan drew down significantly
over the last few years, the lack of a defined strategy
continued to erode the mission.
One of the clearest inflection points was the ill-fated
decision to go to war in Iraq. Just as we began to achieve
momentum in Afghanistan, the Bush administration's invasion of
Iraq drew critical resources, troops and focus away from the
Afghan theater. Our best opportunity in Afghanistan was
squandered and we were never able to get back on track.
Throughout the war, we were also unsuccessful in dealing
with Pakistan's support to the Taliban. Even as American
diplomats sat down with Pakistani leaders and our forces
cooperated on counterterrorism missions, the Taliban enjoyed
sanctuary inside Pakistan with time and space to regroup.
More recently the Taliban's resurgence can be tied to the
flawed Doha agreement, which then-President Trump signed in
2020. This deal, negotiated between the Trump administration
and the Taliban without our coalition allies or even the Afghan
Government present, promised the end of the entire
international presence in Afghanistan, including contractors
critical to keeping the Afghan Air Force in the fight, with
virtually no stipulations. The Taliban, with momentum on the
battlefield and no incentives to honor the Doha agreement, used
the final year of the Trump administration to boldly escalate
violence and begin its faithful March toward Kabul.
Despite colossal efforts over multiple administrations,
both Democratic and Republican, we were unable to help build an
Afghan Government capable of leading its people nor an Afghan
security force capable of defeating the Taliban. Afghan
soldiers fought bravely in the face of massive casualties, but
faced with the loss of American military support and hamstrung
by corruption within, they were unable to stand on their own
against Taliban forces.
Secretary Austin, General Milley, General McKenzie, you
have each led troops in combat in Afghanistan, commanded at the
theater level, and advised our Nation's top leaders on our
Afghanistan strategy. You have played significant roles
throughout this war, and I hope that you are forthcoming in
your answers today.
To begin, I would ask that you provide an accounting of the
intelligence and other key assessments that factored into your
judgments about the viability of the Afghan Government and
Afghan forces and how those trends changed over time. I would
like to know any lessons you have identified for how we can
more effectively work by, with, and through partner nation
forces in the future.
Additionally, I would like to understand what factors you
attribute to the Taliban's success and whether we missed
indicators and warnings of their imminent takeover.
Finally, while we have transitioned our military from
Afghanistan after largely achieving our counterterrorism
objectives, we must continue to ensure that Afghanistan can
never again be used as a base for terrorist groups to conduct
operations against the United States and our allies. We must
remain vigilant about these threats and ensure that we
establish an effective counterterrorism architecture moving
forward. To that end, I would ask that you update the Committee
on your plans for over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations.
The United States faces new and evolving threats around the
world. To overcome them we must first understand what went
wrong to our mission in Afghanistan and learn from those
missteps. We owe it to the American people.
I want to thank you again for being here this morning, and
I look forward to your testimony.
Now, before I turn to the Ranking Member Inhofe, for the
benefit of my colleagues, because we have two rounds of open
testimony and a closed session following, I will strictly
enforce the 5-minute limit allowed for each Member. I intend to
recess at 1:00 p.m. for lunch and promptly resume at 1:30 p.m.
I would again remind my colleagues that there will be a
classified briefing immediately following the open session in
SVC-217, the office of Senate Security.
Again, before I turn to Ranking Member Inhofe, I want to
note that the rules of the Committee state that witness
testimony should be sent to the Committee 48 hours in advance,
and it is customary that, at the very latest, testimony arrives
the afternoon before the hearing. I am disappointed that the
statements of our witnesses were not sent to the Committee
until late last evening, giving Senators and the staff very
little time to review. I hope that when these witnesses appear
again before this Committee, they will follow the Committee
rules and customs.
Now, let me turn to Ranking Member Inhofe.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JAMES INHOFE

Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let us make sure
that everyone understands that the 5-minute limit does not
affect opening statements.
Let me say it a little bit stronger, the statement that was
made by our Chairman, that there is no reason in the world that
they waited until late last night to send this information to
us. All these Members, they want to be well informed, and they
did not have that opportunity.
I want to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to our
servicemembers and our veterans. Our men and women in uniform
bravely volunteer to go into harm's way for one reason: to keep
their fellow Americans safe. They represent our very best.
I especially want to recognize those who made the ultimate
sacrifice, and their families. On August 26th, we were reminded
so painfully of what we ask our troops and their families to
do. They laid it all on the line for this country. Those 13 men
and women died trying to evacuate their fellow Americans and
at-risk Afghans from Kabul under extremely difficult and
dangerous circumstances.
So I want to be perfectly clear. The frustration on this
Committee about the chaotic and deadly withdrawal from
Afghanistan is not, and should never be, directed towards our
troops. It was President Biden and his advisers who put them in
that situation. Even worse, this was avoidable. Everything that
happened was foreseen. My colleagues on this Committee and the
commanders in charge, we saw it coming. So we are here today to
understand what happened and why that advice was ignored.
General McKenzie, you said in February, before the
President decided to fully withdraw from Afghanistan, quote,
``You have to take a conditions-based approach.'' You expressed
your concern, quote, ``about the actions that the Taliban have
taken up until this point,'' meaning that the Taliban was not
constraining al Qaeda, as it had agreed to do so under the
conditions-based agreement that it signed with the Trump
administration, that it was a conditions-based statement, in
position.
Around the same time, General Miller, who was then the
commander of United States Forces Afghanistan, advised his
chain of command to keep approximately 2,500 troops in the
country. He warned that the Taliban might otherwise take over.
General McKenzie, you offered a similar warning when you
last testified before this Committee in April, right after the
President made his decision to withdraw. You said, quote, ``My
concern is the ability of the Afghan military to hold the
ground that they are on now without the support that they have
been used to for many years.''
Throughout the spring, we saw many districts quickly fall
to the Taliban, many without firing a shot. This is why I urged
President Biden in June to rethink his approach and maintain a
small force in Afghanistan in order to prevent the collapse we
ultimately saw. It was also why the Members of this Committee,
on both sides of the aisle, spent months urging the
administration to evacuate Americans and our Afghan partners
sooner.
But President Biden and his advisers did not listen to his
combat commander, he did not listen to Congress, and he failed
to anticipate what all of us knew would happen.
So in August, we all witnessed a horror of the President's
own making. Afghans died as they desperately gripped onto the
departing flights. The Taliban is in a stronger position than
it has been since 9/11. The terrorist Haqqani members are now
in senior government positions. We went from ``we will never
negotiate with terrorists'' to ``we must negotiate with
terrorists.'' You know, in the years that I have been here, we
have heard over and over again, ``you do not negotiate with
terrorists,'' and now it is required.
Worst of all, 13 brave Americans were killed in the
evacuation effort. Three days later, the Biden administration
said that it struck an ISIS operative, but, in fact, it killed
10 Afghan civilians, including 7 children. Then, President
Biden concluded the drawdown by doing the unthinkable--he left
Americans behind.
The men and women who served in uniform, their heroic
families, and the American people deserve answers. How did this
avoidable disaster happen? Why were Americans left behind?
President Biden's decision to withdraw has expanded the
threat of terrorism and increased the likelihood of an attack
on the Homeland. The administration is telling the American
people that the plan to deal with these threats is something
called over-the-horizon counterterrorism, and that we do these
types of operations elsewhere in the world. That is misleading,
at best, and dishonest, at worst.
There is no plan. We have no reliable partners on the
ground. We have no bases nearby.
The Afghan Government is now led by terrorists with long
ties to al Qaeda, and we are at the mercy of the Pakistan
Government to get into Afghanistan airspace. Even if we can get
there, we cannot strike al Qaeda in Afghanistan because we are
worried about what the Taliban will do to the Americans who are
still there, and Americans are still there.
The administration needs to be honest. Because of President
Biden's disastrous decision, the terrorist threat to American
families is rising significantly, while our ability to deal
with these threats has declined decidedly.
We will have another hearing with expert witnesses on
Thursday--that is just 2 days from now. We understand the
Undersecretary of Defense, Colin Kahl, has agreed to testify in
that hearing. So today is really just a start.
In conclusion, I would just like to say this. President
Biden made a strategic decision to leave Afghanistan which
resulted in the death of 13 United States servicemembers, the
deaths of hundreds of Afghan civilians, including women and
children--that is what terrorists do--and left American
citizens surrounded by the very terrorists who attacked us on
9/11, and they are still there.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Well, thank you very much, Senator Inhofe.
Secretary Austin and Chairman Milley, the Doha agreement--
excuse me. We want to give you an opportunity to have opening
statements, as I have been reminded. So, General Austin, you
are recognized.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LLOYD J. AUSTIN III, SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE

Secretary Austin. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe,
Members of this Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss our recent draw down in
evacuation operations in Afghanistan. I am pleased to be joined
by Generals Milley and McKenzie, who I know will be able to
provide you with additional context.
I would like to make a few points before turning it over to
you and to them. First I want to say how incredibly proud I am
of the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, who conducted
themselves with tremendous skill and professionalism throughout
the war, the draw-down 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. 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. We can debate the decisions,
over 20 years that led us to this point. But I know that you
agree with me that one thing not open to debate is the courage
and the compassion of our servicemembers, who, along with their
families, served and sacrificed to ensure that our Homeland
would never again be attacked the way it was on 9/11.
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, and I have never been more humbled and
inspired. They are rightfully proud of what they accomplished
and the lives they saved in such a short span of time.
In fact, I would like to talk to you a little bit about
that issue of time. 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 of a
non-combatant evacuation as far back as this spring.
Indeed, by late April, 2 weeks after the President's
decision, military planners had crafted a number of evacuation
scenarios. In mid-May, I ordered Central Command to make
preparations for potential noncombatant evacuation operations
(NEO). Two weeks later I began pre-positioning forces in the
region to include three infantry battalions. On the 10th of
August, we ran another tabletop exercise around a non-combatant
evacuation scenario. We wanted to be ready and we were. In
fact, by the time that the State Department called for a NEO,
leading elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit 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.
But Let us be clear. Those first 2 days were difficult. We
all watched with alarm the images of Afghans rushing the runway
and our aircraft. We all remember the scenes of confusion
outside the airport. But within 48 hours, our troops restored
order, and process began to take hold. Our soldiers, airmen and
marines, in partnership with our allies and partners and our
State Department colleagues, secured the gates, took control of
airport operations, and set up a processing system for the tens
of thousands of people they would be manifesting onto
airplanes.
They and our commanders exceeded all expectations. We
planned to evacuate between 70,000 and 80,000 people. They
evacuated more than 124,000. We planned to move between 5,000
and 9,000 people per day. On average, they moved slightly
between more than 7,000 per day. On military aircraft alone, we
flew more than 387 sorties, averaging nearly 23 per day. At the
height of this operation an aircraft was taking off every 45
minutes. 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 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 Afghanistan. We
are still working to get Americans out who wish to leave, and
we did not get out all of our Afghan allies enrolled in a
Special Immigrant Visa program. We take that seriously, and
that is why we are working across the interagency to continue
facilitating their departure. Even with no military presence on
the ground, that part of our mission is not over.
Tragically, lives were lost: several Afghans killed
climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day; 13 brave United
States servicemembers and dozens of Afghan civilians killed in
a terrorist attack on the 26th; and we took as many as 10
innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th.
Non-combatant 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 a span of just 2 days, from the 13th to the 15th of
August, we went from working alongside a democratically elected
longtime partner government to coordinating warily with a
longtime enemy. We operated in a deeply dangerous environment,
and it proved a lesson in pragmatism and professionalism.
We learned a lot of other lessons too, about how to turn an
Air Force base in Qatar to an international airport overnight,
and about how to rapidly screen, process, and 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 is crucial.
Now I know that Members of this Committee will have
questions on many things, such as why we turned over Bagram
Airfield and how real is our over-the-horizon capability, and
why did we not start evacuations sooner, and why did we not
stay longer to get more people out? So let me take each in
turn.
Retaining Bagram would have required putting as many as
5,000 United States 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. That distance from
Kabul also rendered Bagram of little value in the evacuation.
Staying at Bagram even for counterterrorism purposes meant
staying at war in Afghanistan. Something that the President
made clear that he would not do.
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. Indeed, 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 United States
boots on the ground.
As for when we started evacuations, we offered input to the
State Department's decision, mindful of their concerns that
moving too soon might actually cause a very collapse of the
Afghan Government that we all wanted to avoid, and that moving
too late would put our people and our 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 our pre-
positioning of forces.
As for the mission's end, my judgment remains that
extending beyond the end of August would have greatly imperiled
our people and our mission. The Taliban made clear that their
cooperation would end on the first of September, and as you
know, we faced grave and growing threats from ISIS-K. 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 we could get out.
Now 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 have
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 the state, Mr. Chairman, but we could not
forge a nation. The fact that the Afghan army that we and our
partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without
firing a shot, took us all by surprise, and it would be
dishonest to claim otherwise.
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 effect of frequent and unexplained rotations 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, and that the Doha agreement itself had a
demoralizing effect on Afghan soldiers.
Finally, that we failed to 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. Over the years, they often
fought bravely. Tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police
died. But in the end, we could not provide them with the will
to win, at least not all of them. 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, and they made lasting progress in Afghanistan that the
Taliban will find difficult to reverse and that the
international community should work hard to preserve.
Now our servicemembers 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.
I spent time with some of them up at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-
Lakehurst just yesterday. I know that you share my profound
gratitude and respect for their service, their courage, and
professionalism, and I appreciate the support that this
Committee continues to provide them and their families. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Austin follows:]

Prepared Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III
Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe, 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 am 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.
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. We can debate the
decisions over 20 years that led us to this point.
But one thing not open to debate is the courage and compassion of
our servicemembers, who--along with their families--served and
sacrificed to ensure that our Homeland would never again be attacked
the way it was on September 11, 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 have
never been more humbled and inspired. They are rightfully proud of what
they accomplished, and the lives they saved, in such a short span of
time.
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 Central Command to make preparations for a potential non-
combatant evacuation operation. Two weeks later, I began pre-
positioning forces in the region, to include three infantry battalions.
On the 10th of August, we ran another table-top exercise around a non-
combatant evacuation scenario. We wanted to be ready, and we were.
By the time that the State Department called for the NEO,
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 and our aircraft.
We all remember the scenes of confusion outside the airport. But within
48 hours, our troops restored order, and 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 airport operations, and set up a processing system for
the tens of thousands of people they would be manifesting onto
airplanes. They and our commanders exceeded all expectations.
We planned to evacuate between 70,000 to 80,000 people. They
evacuated more than 124,000.
We planned to move between 5,000 to 9,000 people per day. On
average, they moved slightly more than 7,000 per day.
On military aircraft alone, we flew more than 387 sorties,
averaging nearly 23 per day. 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.
We are still working to get Americans out who wish to leave. We did
not get out all of our Afghan allies enrolled in the Special Immigrant
Visa program. We take that very seriously. That is why we are working
across the interagency to continue facilitating their departure. Even
with no military presence on the ground, that part of our mission is
not over.
Tragically, lives were also lost: several Afghans killed climbing
aboard an aircraft on that first day; 13 brave United States
servicemembers and dozens of Afghan civilians killed in a terrorist
attack on the 26th; and we took as many as 10 innocent lives in a drone
strike on the 29th.
Non-combatant 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 land-locked 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 15th--we went
from working alongside a democratically elected, long-time partner
government to coordinating warily with a long-time enemy. We operated
in a deeply dangerous environment. It proved a lesson in pragmatism and
professionalism.
We learned a lot of other lessons, too--about how to turn an Air
Force base in Qatar into an international airport overnight, and about
how to rapidly screen, process, and 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. I think that is crucial.
I know that Members of this Committee will have questions on many
things, such as why we turned over Bagram Airfield, how real is our
over-the-horizon capability, why we didn't start evacuations sooner,
and why we did not stay longer to get more people out. Let me take each
in turn.
Retaining Bagram would have required putting as many as five
thousand United States troops in harm's way, just to operate and defend
it. It would have contributed little to the mission that we had been
assigned: to protect and defend our embassy some 30 miles away. That
distance from Kabul also rendered Bagram of little value in the
evacuation. Staying at Bagram--even for counter-terrorism purposes--
meant staying at war in Afghanistan, something that the President made
clear he would not do.
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. 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. The intelligence that supports them
comes from a variety of sources, not just U.S. boots on the ground.
As for when we started evacuations: we offered input to the State
Department's decision, mindful of their concerns that moving too soon
might actually cause the very collapse of the Afghan Government that we
all wanted to avoid, and that moving too late would put our people and
our 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
pre-positioning of forces.
As for the mission's end: my judgment remains that extending beyond
the end of August would have greatly imperiled our people and our
mission. The Taliban made clear that their cooperation would end on the
first of September, and as you know, we faced grave and growing threats
from ISIS-K. 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 who we could get out.
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 have 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 we could not forge a nation. The fact
that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away--in
many cases without firing a shot--took us all by surprise. It would be
dishonest to claim otherwise.
We need to consider some uncomfortable truths: that we did not
fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their
senior ranks, that we did not grasp the damaging effect of frequent and
unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we did
not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that 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. Over the years, they often fought bravely. 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.
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, and they
made lasting progress in Afghanistan that the Taliban will find
difficult to reverse and that the international community should work
hard to preserve.
Now, our service members and civilians face a new mission: helping
these Afghan evacuees move on to new lives in new places. They are
performing that one magnificently, as well. I spent time with some of
them up at Joint Base Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst, just yesterday. I know
that you share my profound gratitude and respect for their service,
courage, and professionalism.
I appreciate the support that this Committee continues to provide
them and their families.
Thank you.

Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. General Milley, I
believe you have a statement.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY, USA, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT
CHIEFS OF STAFF

General Milley. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe, thank
you for the opportunity to be here with Secretary Austin and
General McKenzie to discuss Afghanistan. As you mentioned up
front, we submitted matters for the record, a lengthy statement
of this cut-down oral version, and I know it got to you late.
During the past 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 of us gave the ultimate sacrifice,
while 20,698 of us were wounded in action, and countless others
of us suffer the invisible wounds of war. There is no doubt in
my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the Homeland
from Afghanistan, which was our core, original mission.
Everyone that has served in that war should be proud. Your
service mattered.
Beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers,
consolidated and closed bases, and retrograded equipment from
Afghanistan. At the peak, in 2011, we had 97,000 United States
troops, alongside 41,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) troops in Afghanistan. Ten years later, when Ambassador
Khalilzad signed the Doha agreement with Mullah Baradar on 29
February 2020, the United States at 12,600 United States
troops, with 8,000 NATO and 10,500 contractors. This has been a
10-year multi-administration draw down, not a 19-month or 19-
day NEO.
Under the Doha agreement, the United States would begin to
withdraw its forces contingent upon 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 conditions
applicable to the United States. While the Taliban did not
attack United States Forces, which was one of the conditions,
it failed to fully honor any other condition under the Doha
agreement.
Perhaps most importantly, for United States national
security, the Taliban has never renounced al Qaeda or broke its
affiliation with them. We, the United States, adhered to every
condition.
In the fall of 2020, my analysis was that an accelerated
withdrawal, without meeting specific and necessary conditions,
risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan,
damaging United States worldwide credibility, and could
precipitate a general collapse of the Afghan National Security
Forces (ANSF) and the Afghan Government, resulting in a
complete Taliban takeover or general civil war. That was a year
ago. My assessment remained consistent throughout.
Based on my advice and the advice of the commanders, then-
Secretary of Defense Esper submitted a memorandum on 9
November, recommending to maintain United States Forces at a
level between about 2,500 and 4,500 in Afghanistan until
conditions were met for further reduction. Two days later on 11
November 2020, I received an unclassified, signed order
directing the United States military to withdraw all forces
from Afghanistan no later than 15 January 2021.
After further discussions regarding the risks associated
with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. On 17
November, we received a new order, to reduce levels to 2,500
plus enabling forces no later than 15 January.
When President Biden was inaugurated, there were
approximately 3,500 United States troops, 5,400 NATO troops,
and 6,300 contractors in Afghanistan, with a specified task of
train, advise, and assist, along with a small contingent of
counterterrorism forces. The strategic situation at
inauguration was stalemate.
The Biden administration, through 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 the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of
us, the CENTCOM commander, General McKenzie, the United States
4A 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. The
cost, benefit, risk to force, and risk to mission were
evaluated against the national security objectives of the
United States.
On 14 April, the President announced his decision, and the
United States military received a change of mission to
retrograde all United States military forces, maintain a small
contingency force of 600 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
Karzai International Airport, and transition the United States
military to an over-the-horizon counterterrorism support and
security force assistance.
It is clear, it is obvious, the war in Afghanistan did not
end on the terms we wanted with the Taliban now in power in
Kabul. Although the NEO was unprecedented, and is the largest
air evacuation history. Evacuating 124,000 people, it came at
an incredible cost of 11 marines, one soldier, and a Navy
corpsman. Those 13 gave their lives so that people they never
met will have an opportunity to live in freedom, and we must
remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist
organization, and they still have not broken ties with al
Qaeda.
I have no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to
be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power, or if
the country will further fracture into civil war, but we must
continue to protect the United States of America and its people
from terrorist attacks coming from Afghanistan. A reconstituted
al Qaeda or ISIS with aspirations to attack the United States
is a very real possibility, and those conditions to include
activity in ungoverned spaces could present themselves in the
next 12 to 36 months. That mission will be much harder now, but
not impossible, and we will continue to protect at the American
people.
Strategic decisions have strategic consequences. Over the
course of 4 Presidents, 12 Secretaries of Defense, 7 Chairmen,
10 CENTCOM Commanders, 20 Commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds
of congressional delegation visits, and 20 years of
congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned.
Two specific to the military that we need to take a look at,
and we will, is did we mirror image the development of the
Afghan National Army, and the second is the rapid collapse,
unprecedented rapid collapse, of the Afghan military in only 11
days in August.
However, one lesson must never be forgotten. Every soldier,
sailor, airman, and marine who served there in Afghanistan for
20 consecutive years protected our country from attack by
terrorists, and for that, they should be forever proud, and we
should be forever grateful.
Thank you, Chairman, and if I could, I know that there are
some issues in the media that are of deep concern to many
Members on the Committee, and with your permission, I would
like to address those for a minute or two. Again, I have
submitted memorandum for the Committee to take a look at.
Chairman Reed. You may proceed.
General Milley. Mr. Chairman, I have served this Nation for
42 years. I have spent years in combat, and I have buried a lot
of my troops who died while defending this country. My loyalty
to this Nation, its people, and the Constitution has not
changed and will never change as long as I have a breath to
give. My loyalty is absolute, and I will not turn my back on
the fallen.
With respect to the Chinese calls, I routinely communicated
with my counterpart, General Li, with the knowledge and
coordination of civilian oversight. I am specifically directed
to communicate with the Chinese by Department of Defense (DOD)
guidance, the policy dialogue system. These military-to-
military communications at the highest level are critical to
the security of the United States in order to deconflict
military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great
powers that are armed with the world's most deadliest weapons.
The calls on 30 October and 8 January were coordinated
before and after with Secretary Esper and Acting Secretary
Miller's staffs and the interagency. The specific purpose of
the October and January calls were generated by concerning
intelligence which caused us to believe the Chinese were
worried about an attack on them by the United States. I know, I
am certain, that President Trump did not intend to attack the
Chinese, and it is my directed responsibility, and it was my
directed responsibility by the Secretary, to convey that intent
to the Chinese.
My task at that time was to de-escalate. My message, again,
was consistent--stay calm, steady, and de-escalate. We are not
going to attack you.
At Secretary of Defense Esper's direction, I made a call to
General Li on 30 October. Eight people sat in that call with
me, and I read out the call within 30 minutes of the call
ending. On 31 December, the Chinese requested another call with
me. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia Pacific
Policy helped coordinate my call, which was then scheduled for
8 January, and he made a preliminary call on 6 January. Eleven
people attended that call with me, and readouts of this call
were distributed to the interagency that same day.
Shortly after my call ended with General Li, I personally
informed both Secretary of State Pompeo and White House Chief
of Staff Meadows about the call, among other topics. Soon after
that, I attended a meeting with Acting Secretary Miller, where
I briefed him on the call.
Later that same day on 8 January, Speaker of the House
Pelosi called me to inquire about the President's ability to
launch nuclear weapons. I sought to assure her that nuclear
launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process.
She was concerned and made various personal references
characterizing the President. I explained to her that the
President is the sole nuclear launch authority, and he does not
launch them alone, and that I am not qualified to determine the
mental health of the President of the United States. There are
processes, protocols, and procedures in place, and I repeatedly
assured her that there is no chance of an illegal,
unauthorized, or accidental launch.
By Presidential Directive and Secretary of Defense
directives, the chairman is part of the process to ensure the
President is fully informed when determining the use of the
world's deadliest weapons. By law, I am not in the chain of
command, and I know that. However, by Presidential Directive
and DOD instruction, I am in the chain of communication to
fulfill my legal statutory role as the President's primary
military advisor.
After the Speaker Pelosi call I convened a short meeting in
my office with key members of my staff to refresh all of us on
the procedures which we practiced daily at the action officer
level. Additionally, I immediately informed Acting Secretary of
Defense Miller of Speaker Pelosi's phone call. At no time was I
attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority,
or insert myself in the chain of command. But I am expected, I
am required, to give my advice and ensure that the President is
fully informed on military matters.
I am submitting for the record a more detailed and
unclassified memoranda, that I believe you all now have,
although late, and I welcome a thorough walkthrough on every
single one of these events. I would be happy, in a classified
session, to talk in detail about the intelligence that drove
these calls. I am also happy to make available any email, phone
logs, memoranda, witnesses, or anything else you need to
understand these events.
[The information referred to follows:]
GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT

My oath is to support the Constitution of the United States
of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I
will never turn my back on that oath. I firmly believe in
civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle,
essential to the health of this republic, and I am committed to
ensuring that the military stays clear of domestic politics.
I look forward to your questions, and thank you, Chairman,
for the extra time.
[The prepared statement of General Milley follows:]

Prepared Statement by General Mark A. Milley
Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Inhofe, thank you for the
opportunity to be here with Secretary Austin and General McKenzie to
discuss Afghanistan.
During the past 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 United States soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines were killed in action. Twenty thousand, six hundred and
ninety-eight were wounded in action and countless others suffer the
invisible wounds of war.
There is no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack
on the Homeland from Afghanistan, which was our core mission. Everyone
who served in that war should be proud. Your service mattered.
Beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers,
consolidated and closed bases, and retrograded equipment from
Afghanistan. At the peak in 2011, we had 97,000 United States and
41,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Ten years later when Ambassador Khalilzad signed the Doha Agreement
with Mullah Berader on 29 February 2020, the United States had 12,600
United States troops, 8,000 NATO and 10,500 contractors in Afghanistan.
This has been a 10-year multi-administration drawdown, not a 19-
month or a 19-day withdrawal.
Under the Doha Agreement, the United States would 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 7 conditions applicable to the Taliban and 8 to the
United States. While the Taliban did not attack United States Forces,
which was one of the conditions, it failed to fully honor any other
commitments under the Doha Agreement. Perhaps most importantly for
United States national security, the Taliban has never renounced al
Qaeda or broke its affiliation with them.
In the 8 months from February to October of 2020, in accordance
with the provisions of the Doha Agreement, we reduced United States
military forces from 12,600 to 6,800, NATO forces from 8,000 to 5,400
and United States contractors from 9,700 to 7,900 in the process of
systematically retrograding from Afghanistan.
One of the conditions of Doha was a reduction of violence by the
Taliban leading to a nationwide cease fire. For the entirety of the
2020 fighting season, the Taliban maintained a consistently higher than
average level of violence throughout the country.
My job is to advise the President, Secretary of Defense, and
National Security Council of various military options and associated
costs, benefits, risk to force, and risk to mission.
In the fall of 2020, my analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal
without meeting necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains
made in Afghanistan, damaging United States credibility, or a general
collapse of the ANDSF and the Afghan Government resulting in a complete
Taliban takeover or a general civil war.
Additionally, we estimated an accelerated withdrawal would increase
risks of regional instability, the security of Pakistan and its nuclear
arsenals, a global rise in violent extremist organizations, our global
credibility with allies and partners would suffer, and a narrative of
abandoning the Afghans would become widespread.
We further assessed the increased potential for a humanitarian
catastrophe including significant numbers of refugees, a degradation in
health, schools, women's rights, and revenge killings.
In 2020, Taliban violence against women, human rights defenders,
journalists, and government officials continued, with almost 1,000
targeted killings attributed to the Taliban, up from 780 in 2019.
The Taliban strengthened its positions around several provincial
capitals in anticipation of the departure of foreign forces and, over
this time period, enemy-initiated attacks increased by over 50 percent
and were above previous seasonal norms.
Based on my advice and the advice of the commanders, Secretary
Esper submitted a memorandum on 9 November recommending to maintain
United States Forces 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 discussions regarding the risks associated with such
a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. On 17 November we received an
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 United States troops, 5,400 NATO, and 6,300 contractors in
Afghanistan tasked to train, advise, and assist with a small contingent
of counter terrorism forces. The strategic situation was stalemate.
The Biden Administration, through 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 the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
CENTCOM Commander General McKenzie, USFOR-A Commander 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. The cost, benefit, risk to force and risk to
mission were evaluated against the national security objectives of the
United States.
On 14 April, the President announced his decision and the U.S.
military received a change of mission to retrograde all United States
military forces, maintain a small contingency force of 600 to 700 to
protect the embassy in Kabul until the Department of State could
coordinate contractor security support, assist Turkey to maintain the
Hamid Karzai International Airport, and transition the United States
mission to ``over the horizon'' counter terrorism support and security
force assistance.
There are 6 issues I would like to further discuss: planning,
Bagram airbase, Intelligence, NEO execution, 31 August, and the Way
Ahead.
First, there were detailed tactical and operational plans developed
by USFOR-A Commander General Miller and CENTCOM Commander General
McKenzie. These plans were reviewed by the interagency and approved at
the highest level. At the strategic level there were extensive
coordination meetings as well as daily action officer level
coordination meetings.
Along with the extensive interagency coordination, there were 4 key
synchronizing events; a 28 April Afghanistan Retrograde Rehearsal, an 8
May senior official rehearsal of concept (ROC Drill), an 11 June
working level interagency table top exercise on NEO, and a 6 August
senior official interagency Non-Combatant evacuation table top
exercise.
The 28 April Afghanistan Retrograde Rehearsal was attended by
leaders from across the DOD, to include the SECDEF, DEPSECDEF, OSD/P,
The Joint Chiefs as well as the USFOR-A Commander General Miller, the
Commander of CENTCOM General McKenzie, the Commander of TRANSCOM
General Lyons, the SACEUR Commander General Wolters, the Commander
SOCOM General Clarke, and the Commander of CYBERCOM General Nakasone.
The main purpose of this rehearsal was to ensure shared understanding
of President Biden's decision to leave Afghanistan and coordinate and
synchronize the efforts of DOD, our allies, and partners.
The 8 May senior officials level interagency table top exercise had
all relevant cabinet members to include but not limited to the
Secretary of Defense Austin, DEPSECDEF Kathleen Hicks, select Combatant
Commanders, to include CENTCOM, EUCOM, TRANSCOM, CYBERCOM, SOCOM, and
other interagency officials. This event covered a rehearsal of concept
for the complete withdrawal of United States Forces from Afghanistan
and covered various branch plans and sequels. It was to ensure that the
United States Government, Interagency, and partners and allies had a
shared vision of our withdrawal timeline, the plan itself, and to
ensure it was synchronized.
On 11 June, the Joint Staff hosted a NEO interagency table top
exercise. It included senior officials from across the interagency.
These officials generated a myriad of key milestones to include
prioritization and sequencing of key personnel, contingency for embassy
closure, intermediate staging base locations, sorting and screening of
evacuees and triggers for calling the NEO.
On 6 August another senior interagency Non-Combatant Evacuation
table top exercise, focused on two scenarios; a semi-permissive NEO and
a non-permissive NEO with a rapidly deteriorating security situation.
Second, the Bagram decision. In order to execute the NEO, General
McKenzie and General Miller assessed two potential departure airfields.
With the mission changing from direct military support to the ANDSF to
security of the Embassy and other key facilities at HKIA, the United
States military could not secure both Bagram airfield and HKIA with the
troops available.
All together securing Bagram would have required approximately 5-
6,000 additional troops assuming no indigenous partner force was
available. These forces are in addition to those that would be required
to secure Kabul and HKIA in the event of a NEO.
As General Miller has previously testified, HKIA would always be
the center of gravity of any NEO due to the population that would need
to be evacuated was mostly in Kabul.
In extremis we developed contingency plans to re-seize BAGRAM, but
the conditions to do so never materialized. In short, USFOR-A and
CENTCOM plans estimated that in order to conduct the NEO, HKIA was the
most logical choice given the mission, enemy, purpose, constraints, and
restraints. Maintaining both BAGRAM and HKIA was not feasible given the
mission and troops available. Their analysis was briefed, reviewed and
approved at the most senior levels of our government.
Third, the Intelligence Community provided consistent strategic-
level warning regarding the Taliban's increased activity as evidenced
by events on the ground. There are 419 districts in Afghanistan. The
Taliban controlled approximately 78 districts in February of 2021. This
rose to over 100 in mid-June and surpassed 200 by mid-July, with
fighting occurring on the outskirts of 15 provincial capitals.
By late July it was evident that the security situation was
deteriorating rapidly. The IC consistently estimated that the ANSDF was
at risk of fracture and the government could collapse after the
departure of United States Forces at the end of the summer with
opinions ranging from weeks, months, or in some cases years after our
departure depending on when the intelligence report was written.
The consensus intelligence view estimated an ANDSF fracture and
provincial capitals captured with the exception of Kabul by early to
late fall or at the latest December, assuming the last United States
troops were out by 31 August.
There were no estimates that I am aware of that predicted the
collapse of the Afghan Army and the government in 11 days in August
prior to the final departure of United States Forces.
The speed, scale and scope of the collapse was a surprise.
Fourth, there were two distinct missions that get conflated. One
was the retrograde of military forces, which was largely completed by
early to mid-July. The other was the execution of a non-combatant
evacuation.
The first provincial capital fell on 6 August. On 14 August,
Ambassador Wilson declared a NEO and the Secretary of Defense ordered
the commander of CENTCOM to execute the NEO contingency plan, which was
developed months earlier. We began to alert, marshal, and deploy
prepositioned forces from the Middle East and pre-alerted forces from
CONUS in accordance with CENTCOM's plan.
The Joint Force executed the NEO in a highly dynamic, dangerous
operating environment from a war-torn country, eventually evacuating
over 120,000 people entirely by air on 387 United States military
sorties and 391 non U.S. military sorties.
Evacuees included 6,000 American citizens, over 3,000 3rd country
nationals and the remainder were Afghans designated by the Department
of State. This NEO was executed by the Joint Force deploying 6,000
troops in 2 days. We established 26 temporary safe havens stretching
from the middle east across Europe and here in the United States.
The fifth point is the 31 August decision. On 25 August during the
conduct of the NEO, I was asked for my best military advice on whether
the United States should maintain military forces in Afghanistan beyond
31 August.
I and the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with the commander of
CENTCOM, USFOR-A now Admiral Vasley, and the Commander of the 82nd
Airborne Division Major General Donahue reviewed four courses of
action.
We assessed the cost, benefit, risk to force, risk to mission and
risk to remaining Americans in each of these COAs. We determined that
any extension would increase risk to force, mission and remaining
Americans to very high levels.
All the commanders and all the Joint Chiefs recommended that all
U.S. Forces should depart by 31 August. Every one of us understood
these were independent recommendations and there was no requirement or
expectation to achieve consensus.
Remaining at HKIA beyond 31 August or attempting to re-seize Bagram
Air Base and clearing Kabul of Taliban would have required a much
larger commitment of forces in the range of 15 to 20,000 or more
troops, and a resumption of the war against the Taliban while fighting
with ISIS.
We had evacuated over 5,000 American citizens at that point. We did
not have clarity on precise number or location of the remaining
American citizens.
While it was militarily feasible, we assessed the cost to be
extraordinarily high. In addition to U.S. casualties, we assessed the
risk to remaining U.S. citizens would increase significantly. Finally
we assessed there was no guarantee of getting out the remaining
American citizens safely, nor was there a reasonable prospect of an end
state in an achievable amount of time.
Therefore, we unanimously recommended that the military mission be
transitioned on 31 August to a diplomatic mission in order to get out
the remaining American citizens. That mission is still ongoing.
This NEO was unprecedented and is the largest air evacuation in
U.S. history.
Although the mission evacuated 120,000 people it came at an
incredible cost of 11 marines, 1 soldier, and a Navy corpsman. These 13
gave their lives so that people they never met would have an
opportunity to live in freedom.
For the last point, the Taliban was and remains a terrorist
organization and they still have not broken ties with al Qaeda. I have
no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to be seen whether or
not the Taliban can consolidate power or if the country will fracture
into further civil war.
We now must continue to protect the American people from terrorist
attacks emanating from Afghanistan. A reconstituted al Qaeda or ISIS
with aspirations to attack the United States is a very real possibility
and those conditions to include activities in ungoverned spaces could
present themselves in the next 12 to 36 months. That mission will be
much harder now, but not impossible, and we will continue to protect
the American people.
Strategic decisions have strategic consequences, over the course of
four Presidents, 12 Secretaries of Defense, seven chairmen, ten CENTCOM
commanders, 20 commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of Congressional
Delegation visits, and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are
many lessons to be learned.
Some of the key ones that require thoughtful examination are the
decisions to reduce forces in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. We
need to fully examine the role of Pakistan sanctuary. We need to
completely understand the degree to which corruption contributed to the
collapse of the Afghan Government. We need to fully understand the
mission creep where we transitioned from a Counter Terrorism mission to
nation building. On the military side we need to understand how we
developed, trained, and equipped the ANDSF and why they collapsed in
only 11 days. Each of these and many more are complex issues that will
require thorough examination in the months and years ahead.
On the military side we need--and I am committed--to understand how
we developed, trained, and equipped the ANDSF and why they collapsed in
only 11 days and how our intel systems missed the speed of that
collapse. Each of these and many more are complex issues that will
require thorough examination in the months and years ahead.
It is clear that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms
that we wanted with the Taliban in power in Kabul. However, one lesson
must never be forgotten, every soldier, sailor, airman and marine who
served there for the past 20 years protected our country from attack by
terrorists and for that they should be forever proud and we should be
forever grateful.
I want to take a moment to address the recent media reporting
surrounding the conduct of my duties during the final months of the
Trump Administration.
I have served this Nation for 42 years. I've spent years in combat
and buried a lot of my troops who died while defending this country. My
loyalty to this Nation, its people, and the Constitution hasn't changed
and will never change as long as I have a breath to give. My loyalty is
absolute.
From October through January, I received and made hundreds of calls
of assurance to allied and partner counterparts around the world as
well as adversary counterparts. I also fielded many calls from you,
members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat.
In frequent meetings with the joint chiefs, combatant commanders
and daily meetings with my own staff, my message was consistent: that
we are steady, the United States military has no role in politics, we
will obey the lawful orders of the civilians appointed over us, and we
will remain loyal to the Constitution.
With respect to the Chinese calls, I routinely communicated with my
counterpart, General Li, with the knowledge and coordination of
civilian oversight. I am specifically directed to communicate with the
Chinese by Department of Defense Guidance, Policy Dialogue System.
These military to military communications at the highest levels are
critical to the security of the United States in order to deconflict
military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers
armed with nuclear weapons.
The calendar year 2019 and calendar year 2020 Guidance for U.S.
Department of Defense Contacts and Exchanges with the PRC directed the
DOD to routinize and prioritize DOD contacts and exchanges with the PLA
to enhance predictability, stability, and prevent an incident between
United States and PRC operational forces from inadvertently escalating
to crisis.
The calls on 30 October and 8 January were coordinated before and
after with Secretary Esper and Acting Secretary Miller's staffs and the
interagency. The specific purpose of the October and January calls was
generated by concerning intelligence which caused us to believe the
Chinese were worried about an imminent attack by the United States.
I know, I am certain, President Trump did not intend on attacking
the Chinese and it is my directed responsibility--to convey
presidential orders and intent. My job at that time was to de-escalate.
My message again was consistent: calm, steady, deescalate. We are not
going to attack you.
At Secretary of Defense Esper's direction, I made a call to General
Li on 30 October. Eight people sat in the call with me, and I read out
the call within about 30 minutes of the call ending.
On 31 December, the Chinese requested a call with me. The Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia Pacific Policy helped
coordinate my call which was scheduled for 8 January. Eleven people
attended the call with me. Read-outs of this call were distributed to
the interagency that same day.
Shortly after my call ended with General Li, I informed both
Secretary of State Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Meadows about
the call among other topics. Soon after that, I attended a meeting with
Acting Secretary Miller where I briefed him on the call.
Later that same day, 8 January, Speaker Pelosi called me to inquire
about the President's ability to launch nuclear weapons. I sought to
assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and
deliberate process.
She was concerned and made various personal references
characterizing the President. I explained that the President is the
sole nuclear launch authority but he doesn't launch them alone.
There are processes, protocols, and procedures in place and I
repeatedly assured her there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized,
or accidental launch.
These procedures are outlined in an Executive Order, a Presidential
Policy Directive, National Security Presidential Memorandum, Department
of Defense Directives, Department of the Defense Nuclear Plan, Posture
Guidance, and finally Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Emergency
Procedure volumes I - X, all of which are classified.
By Presidential Directive and SecDef Directives, the Chairman is
part of this process to ensure the President is fully informed when
determining the use of the world's deadliest weapons. By law, I am not
in the chain of command. However, by Presidential Directive and DOD
Instruction, I am in the chain of communication to fulfill my statutory
role as the President's primary military advisor.
After the Speaker Pelosi call, I convened a short meeting in my
office with the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my NMCC
watch officer, J-2, J-3, and Director of the Joint Staff among others
to refresh on these procedures, which we practice daily at the action
officer level. Additionally, I immediately informed Acting Secretary of
Defense Miller of her call.
At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process,
usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command, but I am
expected to give my advice and ensure that the President is fully
informed.
I am submitting for the record, a more detailed unclassified
memorandum of my actions surrounding these events.
I welcome a thorough walk-through of all these events, and I would
be happy in a classified session to talk in detail about the intel that
motivated these actions and the specific timeline. I am also happy to
make available all emails, phone logs, memoranda, witnesses or anything
else you need to better understand these events.
My oath is to support the Constitution of the United States of
America, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, regardless of cost
to myself, and I will never turn my back on the oath. I firmly believe
in civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle essential to
this Republic and I am committed to ensuring the military stays clear
of domestic politics.

Chairman Reed. Thank you, General.
General McKenzie, I understand you do not have a statement.
Is that correct?
General McKenzie. Sir, I will waive my statement in order
to get us back on schedule.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, General.
Secretary Austin, the Doha agreement represents direct
negotiations with terrorists, and not just negotiations but an
agreement with them that excluded the Afghan Government and the
allies we have been fighting with us now since 9/11. It set a
fixed departure date with conditions, as has been indicated,
were not really followed consistently by the Taliban. As you
considered, in April, what to do, did the intelligence suggest
to you that reneging on the departure of the troops would lead
to significant attacks against American and allied military
forces?
Secretary Austin. Chairman, to my recollection, the
intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance
with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on
our forces.
Chairman Reed. They would include the blue-on-green attacks
and any other means they could use to attack American forces.
Secretary Austin. That is correct, Chairman.
Chairman Reed. So the choice was, in many respects, was,
were we going to incur additional casualties indefinitely in
Afghanistan? That is one way to look at it. Is that fair?
Secretary Austin. That is correct, Chairman. You certainly
would have to take additional measures to be able to defend
yourself if the Taliban recommenced their offensive operations
against us.
Chairman Reed. Now, General Milley and General McKenzie,
did the Doha agreement affect the morale of the Afghan forces,
i.e., was there a sense now that even though it was months
away, that the United States was leaving since we had agreed to
leave?
General Milley. I will let Frank talk the details, but my
assessment is yes, Senator, it did affect the morale of the
Afghan security forces.
Chairman Reed. General McKenzie?
General McKenzie. Sir, it is my judgment that the Doha
agreement did negatively affect the performance of the Afghan
forces, in particular by some of the actions that the
government of Afghanistan was required to undertake as part of
that agreement.
Chairman Reed. One of the critical issues was the agreement
to withdraw contractors, which are basically the engine that
maintains the air force of Afghanistan and many other
logistical operations. That was just as critical as the troop
departure, I would assume.
General McKenzie. Chairman, it was. We had plans in place
to try to conduct those operations from over the horizon. They
were not as effective as having contractors on the ground, on
site with the aircraft.
Chairman Reed. The momentum appeared to be shifting to the
Taliban. Indications were their penetration or parts of the
country in the northern sectors, particularly which
traditionally opposed the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, but
that started--to be fair, that started long before Doha. There
are some commentators who have suggested since 2014, the
Taliban have been surrounding provincial capitals, insinuating
themselves into the politics of the local communities, striking
bargains. Is that your impression too, General McKenzie?
General McKenzie. Sir, I think it is a good assessment that
from 2014 on, the Taliban did pursue that strategy, and they
had some success. Now, the government of Afghanistan also had
success holding onto centralized urban areas and population
centers, but the Taliban pursued a distinct strategy and had
some success with it.
Chairman Reed. Now, Secretary Austin, you did provide your
best military advice to the President regarding the situation
in Afghanistan, and has been recounted several times through
multiple meetings, and he received advice from many different
quarters. Do you feel that you had the opportunity to make your
advice very clear?
Secretary Austin. I do, Chairman. As I have said before, I
always keep my advice to the President confidential, but I am
very much satisfied that we had a thorough policy review, and I
believe that all of the parties had an opportunity to provide
input. That input was received.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much.
Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It was 2 weeks ago that we had a closed, classified
hearing. We had General Miller's recommendation at that time.
Well, let me first of all just mention that during you
confirmation process, you committed, and I am speaking now to
General McKenzie and General Milley, to give me your honest and
personal views of this Committee, even if those views differed
from those of the administration, and I am confident that you
will be doing that.
During this hearing that we had, it was emphasized to us,
from General Miller, that he was recommending the 2,500 troops
in Afghanistan. Now, we did not receive the documentation from
your offices, I say to the witnesses today, until, well
actually, 10:35 last night. So there really was not time to get
into a lot of the details, but I would ask General McKenzie,
did you agree to the recommendation that General Miller had 2
weeks ago?
General McKenzie. Senator, again, I will not share my
personal recommendation to the President, but I will give you
my honest opinion, and my honest opinion and view shaped my
recommendation. I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in
Afghanistan, and I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020
that we maintain 4,500 at that time. Those are my personal
views. I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces
would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military
forces, and eventually the Afghan Government.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, so I understand that, and General
Milley, I assume you agree with that in terms of the
recommendation of 2,500?
General Milley. What I said in my opening statement and the
memoranda that I wrote back in the fall of 2020 remained
consistent, and I do agree with that.
Senator Inhofe. This Committee is unsure as to whether or
not General Miller's recommendation ever got to the President.
Obviously, there are conversations with the President, but I
would like to ask, even though General McKenzie, I think you
have all made this statement. Did you talk to the President
about General Miller's recommendation?
General McKenzie. Sir, I was present when that discussion
occurred, and I am confident that the President heard all the
recommendations and listened to them very thoughtfully.
Senator Inhofe. So one of the recommendations that was made
by the three of you would be the recommendation that originally
was made by General Miller 2 weeks ago.
During the August 18th interview on ABC, George
Stephanopoulos asked President Biden whether U.S. troops would
stay beyond August 31st if there were still Americans to
evacuate. President Biden responded, and this is a quote, ``If
there are American citizens left, we are going to stay to get
them all out.'' This did not happen. President Biden's decision
resulted in all of the troops leaving, but the American
citizens are still trying to get out.
How many American citizens, is your opinion, are still
there? Just go down the line, each one of you. Anyone?
Secretary Austin. Senator, I would defer to the State
Department for that assessment. That is a dynamic process. They
have been contacting the civilians that are in Afghanistan, and
again, I would defer to them for definitive numbers.
Senator Inhofe. Go ahead. Others?
General Milley. Same as the Secretary just said. There were
numbers at the beginning of this whole process with the F-77
report out of the embassy, and we know that we took out almost
6,000, I guess it is, American citizens. But how many remain--
--
Senator Inhofe. Okay. Do all of you agree that Secretary of
State Blinken, when he made his analysis as to how many people
would be here, would still be there, he talked about the 10,000
to 15,000 citizens left behind, and then evacuated some 6,000.
That would mean a minimum of 4,000 would still be there now.
Would anyone disagree with that? By your silence, I assume you
agree.
Secretary Austin. I have no--I personally do not believe
that there are 4,000 American citizens still left in
Afghanistan, but I cannot confirm or deny that, Senator.
Senator Inhofe. So you think Secretary of State was
probably wrong in his analysis?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, and just for the record, the
Chair and the Vice Chair/Ranking Member have each abided by the
5-minute rule, so fair is fair.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General McKenzie for
being here this morning. Secretary Austin and General Milley,
thank you for your effort to put into some historical
perspective what happened in Afghanistan, and for recognizing
the incredible service and sacrifice of the troops who served
there.
General Milley, in a hearing before the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense in June, I explicitly
raised concerns about the plight of at-risk Afghans due to our
withdrawal, and I asked about the Department's plans to
evacuate them. Now you indicated today that you thought we
might be facing the kind of desperate situation that we saw in
Kabul, but your response at that time was that, quote, ``Lots
of planning was ongoing,'' and this is in-quote, ``and the
State Department was leading efforts pertaining to evacuating
our Afghan partners.'' You explicitly told the committee that
in your professional opinion, you did not see Saigon 1975 in
Afghanistan. So I am just trying to figure out why we missed,
or from a public perception, it appears that we did not
anticipate the rapid fall of Afghanistan and Kabul, and the
rise of the Taliban, and the way we saw it play out on
television. What did we miss?
General Milley. I think, Senator, we absolutely missed the
rapid 11-day collapse of the Afghan military and the collapse
of their government. I think there was a lot of intelligence
that clearly indicated that after we withdrew, that it was a
likely outcome of a collapse of the military and collapse of
the government. Most of those intelligence assessments
indicated that that would occur late fall, perhaps early
winter, Kabul might hold till next spring. It depends on when
the intel assessment was written. So after we leave, the
assessments were pretty consistent that you would see a general
collapse of the government and the military.
While we were there, though, up through 31 August, there is
no intel assessment that says the government's going to
collapse and the military's going to collapse in 11 days, that
I am aware of, and I have read, I think, pretty much all of
them. Even as late as the 3rd of August, and there is another
one on the 8th of August, et cetera, they are still talking
weeks, perhaps months, et cetera.
General McKenzie can illuminate on his own views on the
same topic. He gave his assessments at the same time. Although
General Miller did, in many, many assessments, say rapid, fast,
hard for collapse, he also centered into the October-November
time frame as opposed to August.
Senator Shaheen. So how do we avoid that happening again?
General Milley. I think the key, Senator that we missed,
frankly, we had some indicators, but we did not have the full
wholesome assessment of leadership, morale, and will. There
were some units, and I do not want to say negative things about
these guys, the 60,000, 70,000 of the Afghan service that were
killed in action over the last 20 years, and many units did
fight at the very end. But the vast majority put their weapons
down and melted away in a very, very short period of time. I
think that has to do with will, leadership, and I think we
still need to try to figure out exactly why that was. I have
some suggestions, but I am not settled on them yet.
But we clearly missed that. I think one of the key factors
we missed it for was we pulled our advisors off three years
ago, and when you pull the advisors out of the units, you no
longer can assess things like leadership and will. We can count
all the planes, trucks, and automobiles, and cars, and machine
guns, and everything else, we can count those from space and
all the other kind of intel assets, but you cannot measure the
human heart with a machine. You have got to be there.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Secretary Austin, I am about to
run out of time, so you may want to respond to this on the next
round, but one of the challenges with getting Special Immigrant
Visa applicants out of Afghanistan has--and this was not just a
problem in the evacuation. This has been a historic problem
that has gone over years--has been having the documents that
show they actually served with our military, and DOD has been
cited as the major problem in getting those documents.
So again, how do we make sure that does not happen again in
some future conflict, where we need our partners on the ground
to serve alongside of our military members? I am out of time,
so hopefully you will answer that. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Shaheen.
Senator Wicker, please.
Senator Wicker. Chairman Reed, before I ask my questions I
have an objection. We have been having hearings in a classified
setting on this, our first public hearing. I am sorry Senator
Kaine has had to step away, but in a previous hearing he
expressed frustration in various hearings he had been to, and a
frustration that I shared. That when the State Department is
here and we ask them a question, they say, ``Well, you have to
ask the Defense Department that.'' Now today, again, Defense
Department people are before us, and a question was asked, and
the answer to Senator Inhofe as well, ``You will have to ask
the State Department that.''
Senator Kaine gently but fatherly sent a message to the
administration at our last classified hearing that we need to
cut that out, that members of the Defense Department need to be
ready for the questions that we have asked and that we are
going to ask. So I object to the continuation of that in this
hearing today.
While I am at it, I would also point out, General Milley, I
appreciate your statement and I have read it, and I understand
what you are trying to say. But further than what you
mentioned, the allegation is that you told combatant commanders
to report back to you. Our clear understanding is that you are
not in their chain of command that they report directly to the
commander in chief through the Secretary. So to the extent that
you told them to report to you, they were not in your chain of
command.
Now, let me see if I can get one question in here, having
taken 2 minutes to mention a very important objection. General
Milley, in the fall of 2020, you said an accelerated withdrawal
would risk substantial gains and damage U.S. credibility, and I
want to ask our witnesses about U.S. credibility.
On July 8, President Biden said, ``The likelihood there is
going to be Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole
country is highly unlikely.'' We now know he was advised
actually this might happen. It turns out, it was completely
untrue, that statement on July 8th.
Later in July, the President of the United States,
President Biden, says, ``I trust the capacity of the Afghan
military, better trained, better equipped, and more competent
in terms of conducting the war.'' President Biden was wrong on
that. We told our interpreters, our drivers, our friends, the
people who had had our backs during this entire period of time
that we would not abandon them, and that is exactly what we
did.
In an interview, that has already been referred to, on
network news, President Biden says, and I quote, ``If there are
American citizens left, we are going to stay and get them all
out.'' Two days later, the President of the United States
unequivocally said, ``Any American that wants to come home, we
will get you home. We are going to stay and get them out.'' The
President of the United States, our commander in chief, did
exactly the opposite.
Now, I think you were right, General Milley, when you
advised that our credibility would be damaged. Our credibility
has been gravely damaged, has it not, General Milley?
General Milley. I think that our credibility with allies
and partners around the world and with adversaries is being
intensely reviewed by them to see which way this is going to
go, and I think that ``damage'' is one word that could be used,
yes.
Senator Wicker. Yes, and Secretary Austin, no question that
this sends a disastrous message to China and Russia. What
message does it send to our NATO allies and our other allies
around the world about not only our credibility, but our
national resolve?
Secretary Austin. Thanks, Senator. What the world witnessed
is United States military evacuating 124,000 people out of a
contested environment in 17 days.
Senator Wicker. Well, you testified that that was a great
accomplishment, our withdrawal and our evacuation. What about
our credibility?
Secretary Austin. As I engage my counterparts, I think our
credibility remains solid. Clearly, Senator, there will be
people who question things going forward, but I would say that
the United States military is one that--and the United States
of America, people place great trust and confidence in.
Relationships are things that we have to work on continuously,
and we understand that and will continue to do that.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Wicker.
Senator Gillibrand, please.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am also very
grateful to our servicemembers who committed so much over the
last 20 years, and I do want to thank President Biden for
taking the tough yet necessary step to stop and end an endless
war, something that many of us have pushed for over the last
decade.
There is obviously still a lot to do both overseas and here
at home, such as ensuring that Afghan refugees are treated
respectfully and responsibly, both on the DOD bases, such as
ensuring that they can be transitioned into their new lives in
the United States. We also have the responsibility to our
troops and to all Americans to make sure that we have a
complete picture of what we did, accomplished, and happened
over the last 20 years across all the administrations. We have
to look back so that we can do better when we look forward.
One way to do better is to make sure Congress maintains and
fulfills its constitutional responsibility. We have to put back
into the hands of Congress the right and responsibility to
declare war. What started as a mission to defeat al Qaeda in
Afghanistan and the perceived threat in Iraq expanded to 20
years of war in more multiple countries, with hundreds of
thousands of lives lost, and trillions of dollars spent? This
is why I introduced the War Powers Reform Resolution, so that
Congress can take back this responsibility for the benefit of
our servicemembers. Congress must set clear and defined goals
for the use of military force abroad, and place a limit to how
long, where, and against whom we can continue military action
without a new authorization, in order to finally put a stop to
endless wars and prevent them in the future.
Second, there should be a comprehensive, rigorous, and
objective audit on the war in its entirety. Over the last 20
years, the United States spent more than $2 trillion on the war
in Afghanistan, and we lost thousands of American lives and
tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. I commend the Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction for its
independent and objective oversight of the Afghanistan
reconstruction, but I do have questions beyond that.
First, General Milley, in your testimony, you said and you
mentioned that there are many lessons to be learned. What did
you mean by that statement?
General Milley. Senator, thank you. I think there is a
series of strategic lessons to be learned, and I would echo
some of the ones that Senator Reed mentioned early on, specific
military lessons we have to take a hard look at. The United
States military was tasked, under the 2002 Bonn Agreement, to
train, man, and equip the Afghan army. The Germans were
required to train, man, and equip the Afghan police. As we
built that army and all of its components, I think that one
error we may have made over time is we made them too dependent
on technology, too dependent on our capabilities, we did not
take in the cultural aspects perhaps as much as we should have,
and we mirror-imaged, to put it simply.
I think that is a big lesson. We are going to have to take
a hard look at it. The result is when you pull contractors, you
pull troops. That, I think, is one of many contributing factors
to the rapid collapse. So that is a big lesson. Another one is
the intel lesson that we talked about. I think that is in the
military realm as well as the intelligence community realm.
There are a lot of other lessons, legitimacy of the
government, corruption of the government. Those sorts of things
are all out there as to why that government collapsed as
rapidly as it could, but those are for others to sort out.
There is a specific set of military lessons we need to pull out
within the military.
Senator Gillibrand. I have read various opinion pieces. I
know everyone here is deeply disturbed that the trained Afghan
military did not perform as expected. I would like your
thoughts on if they had performed as expected, would we have
seen a prolonged civil war? What is your estimate of what the
impact of them actually fighting would have been?
General Milley. My estimate is if they had performed as we
expected them to perform that the government would still be
there. They would have probably lost significant chunks of
territory, but Kabul would be there, and some of the major
provincial capitals. But I would defer that, probably you would
get a more granular view from that from General McKenzie.
Senator Gillibrand. General McKenzie?
General McKenzie. I think had the Afghan military fought,
we would have probably seen the approaches to Kabul get into
the winter, still under the control of the government of
Afghanistan. A lot of the outlying provinces would not have
been.
But I would just note that it was not so much the collapse
of the Afghan military as the collapse of the Afghan Government
writ large. Those two things happen together, and they were
completely linked together. So when you consider one, I think
you have to think about the other.
Senator Gillibrand. Additionally, in retrospect, one of the
areas of debate has been whether we should have started our
evacuation earlier. I recognize that the Kabul Government asked
us not to start our evacuation early. Can you speak to what you
now know and whether it would have been smarter or more
effective if we had started evacuate personnel a year in
advance or 6 months in advance or any time in advance?
Chairman Reed. Could I ask the Senator?
Senator Gillibrand. I apologize. I did not realize my time
was expired.
Chairman Reed. Thank you.
Senator Gillibrand. I will submit that for the record.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much Senator Gillibrand.
Senator Fischer, please.
Senator Fischer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like
to thank our military men and women for their dedication to
this country, for the sacrifices that they and their families
make in any theater of war, and make every day for us.
But our exit from Afghanistan was a disaster and the
missteps that are already outlined had consequences that struck
close to home--as a Nebraskan, Corporal Daegan Page, who was
one of the 13 servicemembers killed in action. We should not
forget we have the policy discussions here today, but let us
remember the human sacrifice.
We also left American citizens behind. General Milley, in
your written testimony, you stated withdraw would increase
risks of regional instability, the security of Pakistan and its
nuclear arsenals, a global rise in violent extremist
organizations, our global credibility with allies and partners
would suffer, and a narrative of abandoning the Afghans would
become widespread. Would you agree that all of these things
that happened over the last eight weeks are currently
happening?
General Milley. I think in the main, yes, Senator, most of
those are probably happening right now.
Senator Fischer. I hope that we see in the future, military
advice having more consideration by the administration on what
will happen from what you and General McKenzie have said today.
General Milley. If I may, Senator, I can tell you with 100
percent certainty that the military voice was heard and it was
considered.
Senator Fischer. It was considered, but not followed.
Correct?
General Milley. Presidents are elected for reasons. They
make strategic decisions, and----
Senator Fischer. I would say this Committee, General, has
always stressed that commanders on the ground should be
listened to. Would you agree with that?
General Milley. I would, and I would tell you they were
listened to. I think there is a difference between us having an
opportunity to have a voice, and I think it is very important
that the military has a voice, but I firmly believe in civilian
control of the military, and I am required and the military
commanders are required to give our best military advice, but
the decision-makers are not required in any manner, shape, or
form to follow that advice.
Senator Fischer. No, they are not, I agree with you about
civilian control of this country, but I think it is also
important to realize when we continue to see missteps by an
administration that is costing lives.
Secretary Austin, it is being reported right now that the
Biden administration reached out to Russia about using Russian
bases in the central Asian nations bordering Afghanistan to the
north for our strike assets to fly out of over-the-horizon
counterterrorism missions. Is that true?
Secretary Austin. Senator, this is an issue that I believe
came up during a conversation that the President had with
President Putin, where President Putin offered to provide
assistance.
Senator Fischer. But have you reached out to the Russians
asking specifically to use bases?
Secretary Austin. General Milley just recently had a
conversation with his Russian counterpart.
Senator Fischer. So the reports are true that have been
coming out today?
Secretary Austin. I can assure you that we are not seeking
Russia's permission to do anything. But I believe and General
Milley can speak for himself, but I believe that he asked for
clarification on what that offer was.
Senator Fischer. I have a number of questions which I will
need to get to with General McKenzie about over-the-horizon and
the capabilities as we look to the future, and what is
available there. But I think what we are seeing in the reports
today about asking to use Russian bases, that is just another
example that we see of the Biden administration, they have
really left us in a terrible position that we have to ask the
Russians to be able to protect the United States from
terrorists, and we have to ask them to use their installations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Austin. I would just reemphasize, Senator that we
are not asking the Russians for anything.
Senator Fischer. But you are negotiating and trying to get
these bases to be able to use their installations, because
Afghanistan is a landlocked country, and when we have
explanations from the military and they give examples for over-
the-horizon, and use countries like Yemen and Libya and
Somalia, that does not take into consideration that Afghanistan
is landlocked. We have to depend on Pakistan to give us
airspace to get there.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Fischer.
Senator Blumenthal, please.
Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I want to express
my hope that this hearing is just the beginning, a first step
in an in-depth analysis, going not just to the last 10 weeks or
even 10 months, but 10 years and longer back, so that we can
match the courage of the men and women of America who have
sacrificed during this 20-year war, all of them and all of
their families, not just in Afghanistan, but around the world.
We owe them, veterans of America, much more than we are giving
them right now because they have earned it.
That in-depth analysis looking backward is essential, but I
want to look forward right now to what is happening in
Afghanistan with respect to Americans and our Afghan allies.
After our withdrawal, it was left to an unofficial network
or coalition of veterans, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), some government officials. I was involved in an effort
through chartered planes and airports outside of Kabul to try
to airlift on a makeshift, ad hoc basis, Americans and Afghan
allies still there. They have targets on their back, their
situation is increasingly urgent and desperate. I have been
frustrated by the lack of someone in charge, in lines of
authority, a point person.
We need an evacuation czar, somebody who will provide a
plan and supervise actions so that we can get out of
Afghanistan the Americans that remain there, and I will tell
you, we do not have an estimate on the number because nobody is
in charge right now.
So let me ask you, Secretary Austin, who at the Department
of Defense as overall responsibility with overseeing the effort
to evacuate?
Secretary Austin. As you know--well, first of all, Senator,
thank you to you and your colleagues for all that you have done
to continue to help get American citizens out of Afghanistan.
The State Department, following the departure of the
military, the State Department remained engaged and continued
to work to get American citizens out. As we have seen, some 85
American citizens and 79 legal permanent residents have
departed via the Kabul airport, and so that work continues on.
The State Department set up a cell to continue this work
and develop a mechanism. That cell is headed up by Ambassador
Bass. As you may recall, Ambassador Bass was one of the senior
counselors on the ground at Hamid Karzai International Airport
(HKIA) as we were conducting the investigation.
I have a general officer that is a part of that cell and we
have reached out to, or Ambassador Bass has reached out to
veterans groups and others who may have information that can
help us continue to contact and eventually, evacuate American
citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs).
So this work continues and we remain committed to
continuing that work until we get out as many American citizens
that are willing to come out.
Senator Blumenthal. Well, there was a point and you can
call it the eye of the storm, when the Taliban had taken over
the country, but really was not in charge, when we could have
evacuated a great many more Americans and our Afghan allies,
the translators and others, guards, security officers. I feel
that the administration was on notice. In fact, a group of us
went to the White House in the spring and urge that there be a
plan for evacuation. Unfortunately, the withdrawal prevented
there from being anybody on the ground.
In the wake of that withdrawal, there was a vacuum of
leadership, and I would hope that there would be more effective
action now to put somebody in charge and develop a plan,
because we know that there are many Americans, whether it is
green card holders or citizens, or others still there. In
Connecticut, we have a resettlement organization called IRIS.
Chris George, who heads it, has told us of individuals who are
still there, more than 40 in Kabul, and I am sure other
organizations similarly know of such Americans who are still
there. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Cotton, please.
Senator Cotton. Thank you.
General Milley, it is your testimony that you recommended
2,500 troops, approximately, stay in Afghanistan?
General Milley. As I have said many times before this
Committee and other committees, I do not share my personal
recommendations to the President, but I can tell you my
personal opinion and my assessment, if that is what you want.
Senator Cotton. Yes, please.
General Milley. Yes, my assessment was, back in the fall of
2020 and it remained consistent throughout, that we should keep
a steady state of 2,500, and it could bounce up to 3,500,
maybe, something like that, in order to move toward a
negotiated gated solution.
Senator Cotton. Did you ever present that assessment
personally to President Biden?
General Milley. I do not discuss exactly what my
conversations are with the sitting President in the Oval
Office, but I can tell you what my personal opinion was, and I
am always candid.
Senator Cotton. Okay. General McKenzie, do you share that
assessment?
General McKenzie. Senator, I do share that assessment.
Senator Cotton. Did you ever present that opinion
personally to President Biden?
General McKenzie. I am not going to be able to comment on
those executive discussions.
Senator Cotton. Did General Miller ever present that
opinion personally to President Biden?
General McKenzie. I think it would be best to ask him. I
believe that his opinion was well heard.
Senator Cotton. Secretary Austin, President Biden last
month, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, said that no
military leader advised him to leave a small troop presence in
Afghanistan. Is that true?
Secretary Austin. Senator Cotton, I believe that--well,
first of all, I know the President to be an honest and
forthright man, and secondly----
Senator Cotton. It is a simple question, Secretary Austin.
He said no senior military leader advised him to leave a small
troop presence behind. Is that true or not? Did these officers
and General Miller's recommendations get to the President
personally?
Secretary Austin. Their input was received by the President
and considered by the President, for sure. In terms of what
they specifically recommended, Senator, as they just said, they
are not going to provide what they recommended in confidence.
Senator Cotton. I mean, it is shocking to me. It sounds to
me like maybe their best military advice was never presented
personally to the President of the United States about such a
highly consequential matter.
Let me move on to another recommendation they are reported
to have made. General Milley, Joe Biden has said that it was
the unanimous--the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs
that we not maintain a military presence beyond August 31st. We
have heard testimony to that effect today as well. When was
that unanimous recommendation sought and presented to the
President?
General Milley. You are talking about the 31 August?
Senator Cotton. Yes, the 31 August deadline for getting----
General Milley. So on 25 August, I was asked to make an
assessment and provide best military advice on----
Senator Cotton. I am sorry. My time is limited here. You
gave me the answer to that I needed to hear. August 25th?
General Milley. Correct.
Senator Cotton. Kabul fell on August 15th.
General Milley. That is correct.
Senator Cotton. You were not asked before August 25th?
General Milley. On August 25th, I was asked to provide best
military assessment as to whether we should keep military
forces past the 31st.
Senator Cotton. Secretary Austin, was anybody asked before
August 25th if we should keep troops at the Kabul airport?
Secretary Austin. The President tasked us to provide an
assessment on whether or not we should extend our presence
beyond August 31st. As General Milley just said, we tasked them
to make that assessment on the 25th, and he came back and
provided his best military advice.
Senator Cotton. Secretary, Kabul fell on August 15th. It
was clear that we had thousands of Americans--it was clear to
Members of this Committee, we were getting phone calls that we
have thousands of Americans in Afghanistan behind Taliban lines
on August 15th and it took 10 days to ask these general
officers if we should extend our presence. I suspect the answer
might be a little different if you were asking them 16 days
out, not 5 days out.
Again, my time is limited. I want to move on to another
matter. President Biden's botched evacuation screwed things up
coming and going as it relates to Afghan evacuees. We left
behind thousands of Afghans who serviced alongside of us who
were vetted and approved to come here.
We brought out thousands who really have no particular
connection, about whom we know nothing and cannot be
effectively vetted. You now have female troops who have been
assaulted. You have Afghan evacuees committing sex crimes at
Fort McCoy. What are we to make of this? What steps are we
taking to ensure that thousands of Afghans about who we know
nothing are not going to be a menace to our troops and our
military bases and into the communities into which they are
about to be released?
Secretary Austin. Well, Senator, I am certainly aware of
the allegations and I take the allegations very seriously. I
can assure you that our commanders at our bases have what they
need to be able to protect our troops and our families that
work and live at those bases. I am in contact with General
VanHerck, the Northern Command (NORTHCOM) commander, who has
overall responsibility for the operation on a routine basis.
This is an area that he remains sighted on.
Senator Cotton. All right, I have just got one final
question. General Milley, I can only conclude that your advice
about staying in Afghanistan was rejected. I am shocked to
learn that your advice was not sought until August 25th on
staying past the August 31 deadline. I understand that you are
the principal military advisor, that you advise, you do not
decide. The President decides. But if all of this is true
General Milley, why have you not resigned?
General Milley. Senator, as a senior military officer
resigning is a really serious thing, and it is a political act
if I am resigning in protest. My job is to provide advice. My
statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best
military advice to the President, and that is my legal
requirement. That is what the law is. The President does not
have to agree with that advice. He does not have to make those
decisions just because we are generals. It would be an
incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer
to just resign because my advice is not taken.
This country does not want generals figuring out what
orders we are going to accept and do or not. That is not our
job. The principal civilian control of the military is
absolute. It is critical to this Republic. In addition to that,
just from a personal standpoint, my dad did not get a choice to
resign at Iwo Jima, and those kids that are at Abbey Gate, they
do not get a choice to resign and I am not going to turn my
back on them. They cannot resign, so I am not going to resign.
There is no way.
If the orders are illegal, we are in a different place, but
if the orders are legal from civilian authority, I intend to
carry them out.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Cotton.
Senator Hirono, please.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Do I understand you correctly, General McKenzie and General
Milley that your personal recommendation was that the troops
who remain in Afghanistan, a certain number of them beyond the
August 31st deadline?
General Milley. No, Senator. Our recommendation, this was
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this is myself included, General
McKenzie, Major General Donahue, the Ground Tactical Commander
of the 82nd Airborne Division, and Admiral Vasely. Every single
one of us were in a tank. I brought them up. Secretary Austin
did not show up. There was no political pressure. There was no
expectation of consensus. Every one of us evaluated 0the
military conditions at the time on the 25th, and we made a
unanimous recommendation that we end the military mission and
transition to a diplomatic mission.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. So while you testify that you
may have had the personal recommendation, and I think in your
case, General McKenzie, in the fall of 2020, or it might have
been General Milley, that by the time we are evacuating
everyone, that was not a recommendation that you personally
held----
General Milley. Absolutely not. At that point on the 25th
of August, no. On the 25th of August, we recommended that the
mission end on the 31st.
Senator Hirono. Thank you for that clarification.
General Milley. Thank you.
Senator Hirono. So the evacuation was chaotic, and yes, we
are really grateful that our military performed magnificently
in evacuating over 120,000 people. But Secretary Austin,
Secretary Blinken acknowledged to my colleagues on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee that no one believed the Afghan
Government and military could collapse as rapidly as it did,
especially in the first weeks of August. However, United States
forces conducted at least a couple of airstrikes in the middle
of July aimed at blunting the Taliban's rapid advance.
Secretary Austin, in July you were aware, or the DOD was
aware that the situation was deteriorating rapidly by July. Why
was an action not taken to secure the Kabul airport or retake
Bagram then?
Secretary Austin. Thank you, Senator. You are right, the
tempo had picked up significantly and the Taliban continued to
make advances. Our entire chain of command--myself, the
Chairman, General McKenzie--routinely engaged the Afghan
leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans,
to make sure that they were providing the right logistics to
their troops, and further, stiffen their defenses, to no avail.
To compound that, President Ghani continued to make changes in
the leadership of the military, and this created further
problems for the Afghan Security Forces.
Senator Hirono. Mr. Secretary, I do not mean to interrupt
you, but my time is elapsing. So this gets to the
overestimation, I think the overly optimistic assessment,
because even as late as July, you are still encouraging the
Afghan Special Forces, you are expecting the Ghani Government
to remain, but that was not the case.
In December 2019, the Washington Post reported that the
United States military commanders privately expressed a lack of
confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off,
much less defeat the Taliban on their own.
General Milley, you noted that there were some specific
military lessons to be learned. This is not the first time that
I think we have relied upon overly optimistic assessments of
conditions on the ground or conflict conditions. It certainly
happened in Vietnam. My question to you is what specific steps
can we take to make sure that our assessments are not overly
optimistic, so we can avoid the reliance on assessments that
are not accurate?
General Milley. I think in the case of working with other
countries' armies, it is important to have advisors with those
units, so that you can do a holistic assessment of things that
are very difficult to measure, the morale factors, leadership
will. I think that is one key aspect.
Another part, I think it is really important, and this is a
lesson from Vietnam and I think today, is do not Americanize
the war. We learned that in El Salvador, or in Colombia, for
example, where we did assist and help other countries' armies
fight insurgencies, and we were quite effective, but it was
their country, their army that bore the burden of all the
fighting. We had very, very few advisers and it was quite
effective. Now, every country is different, every war is
different, and it has to be evaluated on its own merits, but I
think those are some key points that are worth thinking about.
Senator Hirono. I agree. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
Senator Rounds, please.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, first of all, thank you for your willingness to
appear before this Committee to answer questions on the
withdrawal from Afghanistan. You have received and will
continue to receive tough questions on what led to this
decision. This is an important constitutional requirement of
the jobs that you have agreed to serve in, and I thank you all
for your many years of service to our Nation.
I want to underline the fact that every single Member of
this Committee, regardless of party, is grateful for the
dedication and bravery exhibited by our servicemembers,
especially those who gave their last full measure of devotion
at Abbey Gate.
General McKenzie, General Miller told this C0ommittee that
he recommended keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and this is
back in January 2021, because he felt that Afghan forces would
not hold out long without our support. It seems to me that
there would have been a process to convey General Miller's
recommendation to the President. Can you share the process and
who conveyed General Miller's recommendation, and was that
recommendation delivered to both President Trump at the time
and also to President Biden?
General McKenzie. There is a process for delivering
recommendations to commanders in the field. I was part of that
process. While I have been very clear that I will not give you
my recommendation, I have given you my view, which I think you
can draw your own conclusions from, and my view is that 2,500
was an appropriate number to remain, and that if we went below
that number, in fact, we would probably witness a collapse of
the Afghan Government and the Afghan military. So----
Senator Rounds. General McKenzie, I guess my question is
would it be fair for the Committee to assume that both
President Trump and President Biden received that specific
information that had been assumed to be delivered by General
Miller?
General McKenzie. I believe it would be reasonable for the
Committee to assume that.
Senator Rounds. Would General Miller have been able to
deliver that directly to the President, or would someone else
have had to have delivered that for him?
General McKenzie. I would leave it to General Miller to
express an opinion on that, but he and I both had the
opportunity to be in executive session with the President, and
I cannot share anything beyond making that statement.
Senator Rounds. Thank you. Secretary Austin, this Committee
was briefed on the series of rock drills, rehearsal of concept
drills that examined the many potential scenarios that could
arise through the execution of different types of actions and
counteractions. We have been briefed by multiple leaders that
the worst-case scenario, an un-forecasted collapse of the
Afghan Government, was not something that these drills factored
in as a possibility.
Is it true that we actually did tabletop exercises and we
actually went through these drills, and we never assumed that
there could be an immediate collapse of the Afghan Government?
Secretary Austin. We planned for a range of possibilities.
The entire collapse of the Afghan Government was clearly one of
the things that if you look at the intel estimates and some of
the estimates that others had made that could happen. But in
terms of specific planning, especially with respect to NEO, we
planned for a contested environment or an un-consented
environment, the requirement to evacuate a moderate amount of
people versus a large amount of people. So there was a range of
possibilities that we addressed.
Senator Rounds. But never with an immediate collapse of the
government?
Secretary Austin. We certainly did not plan against the
collapse of a government in 11 days.
Senator Rounds. Thank you. General Milley, I think Senator
Cotton made a very good point with regard to the timing, the
collapse of Kabul and the time in which you were asked for your
professional military opinion about the path forward. What
seems to be the real challenge for many of us is that it
appears that in your professional military opinion it would
have been prudent to have used a different approach than a date
certain with regard to a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
If that is correct, and if there were other alternatives
presented to the President, I am certain that the frustration
that you felt in not having your professional military advice
followed closely by an incoming President, that you were then
tasked, in a very short period of time, with handling what was
a position in time for the people that were on the ground there
to respond in an emergency basis. Would it be fair to say that
you changed from a long-term plan of gradual withdrawal based
on conditions to one in which you had to make immediate changes
based upon a date certain?
General Milley. Senator, as a matter of professional
advice, I would advise any leader, do not put dates certain on
end dates. Make things conditions based. Two Presidents in a
row, put dates on it. I do not think that is a--my advice is do
not put specific dates. Make things conditions based. That is
how I have been trained over many, many years.
With respect though, to the 31st and the decision on the
25th, the risk to mission and the risk to force, and most
importantly, the risk to the American citizens that are
remaining, that was going to go up, not down, on the 1st of
September. The American citizens, I know there are American
citizens there, but they would have been at greater risk had we
stayed past the 31st, in our professional opinion.
Senator Rounds. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Senator Kaine, please.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the witnesses, I
want to return to a point that Senator Wicker made. I informed
a DOD witness about 10 days ago that we would expect an answer
to the question of how many Americans are still in Afghanistan,
and that we would not appreciate an answer that that was
deferred to State. I am going to ask the question during my
second round of questions after lunch and with the number of
staff who are here in this room and in the ante room, we ought
to be able to get an answer. If we cannot, it will suggest to
the Committee, and I do not think you want to suggest this to
the Committee, that you do not want to be responsive to that
question, or that you do not talk to the State Department, or
that the number of Americans in Afghanistan is something that
you are indifferent to. I do not think any of those are true,
so I will ask the question again after lunch, and I hope we can
get an answer.
Two compliments and then a critical observation and
inquiry. First, thanks to President Biden for ending the United
States combat mission in Afghanistan after 20 years. It took
guts and it was the right thing to do, and it should have been
done earlier. A Virginia servicemember, whose wife is
expecting, said this to me recently: ``I am so glad that my
baby is not being born into a country at war.''
Some want us to sustain on permanent war footing in
Afghanistan and elsewhere. Some will point out that U.S. troops
are still deployed, still in harm's way, still carrying out
limited militarized strikes around the world.
But to the families of those who have been deployed over
and over again into Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of the
last 20 years, they are relieved that America is now turning
the page and rejecting the notion that we should be a Nation in
permanent war.
Second, the effort to evacuate more than 120,000 people to
safety under chaotic circumstances was remarkable. I visited
the Dulles Expo Center, the principal arrival point for about
80 percent of the Afghans. I also visited Fort Lee, the first
of the eight forts that process Afghans, and I visited with
Afghans, our troops, the many Federal Agencies working
together, NGOs. The competent and compassionate service on the
American side and the deep gratitude among Afghans made a deep
impression on me. We should do all we can to make that
transition to safe life in America as productive as possible.
My chief criticism and question is this. Why did the Afghan
Security Force and civilian government collapse so quickly, and
why did the United States so overestimate their capacity?
The second half of the question, why we overestimated their
capacity, is very important. To any who have said we could not
see this coming, the Members of this Committee know that is
wrong. An immediate collapse may not have been the most likely
outcome, but we have heard for years, particularly from the
intel community, that DOD estimates of Afghan strength were way
too optimistic.
I believe that the United States Government had a good
evacuation plan, but it was premised on an Afghan civilian and
military government that showed high resistance to the Taliban,
and so, we did not adequately plan for the real possibility of
a quick collapse. We need to explore both military and inter-
agency decision-making processes to understand why we were
unrealistic, and how to correct that going forward.
But the most important part of the question is why a
military we had trained for 20 years at a cost of $800-plus
billion dollars collapsed so quickly. I can think of three
reasons, but after I put them on the table, I would like each
of you beginning with General McKenzie to address the question,
and if we cannot, we can do it when we come back after lunch.
First, the lightning collapse may show that our training
was insufficient, and that it did not prepare the Afghan
military to defend the country on their own. That should have
been our goal, but we failed to accomplish it. If so, how must
we change our thinking about training foreign militaries?
Second, the lightning collapse may not prove that the
National Security Forces (NSF) were poor fighters, but that
they were demoralized. Did they lack confidence in their own
political and military leaders? Were they demoralized by a 2020
peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban that
did not even include the Afghan Government?
Mr. Chair, I would like to introduce the peace agreement
for the record.
Chairman Reed. Without objection.
[The information follows:]

GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT

Senator Kaine. Did U.S. and allied funding deepen a culture
of corruption that long predated our involvement? Even the best
fighting force may give in if they have no confidence in their
leadership.
Third, the lightning collapse may show that we wanted
things for Afghans that Afghan leadership did not want for
themselves. We celebrated gains in public health and women's
education, and we assumed that Afghans would fight to preserve
those gains rather than allow the Taliban to take over. In
other words, we thought we knew what Afghans wanted, what they
feared, and what they would fight for.
But was our belief, though well intentioned, incredibly
naive? We cannot get one-third of Americans to take a COVID
vaccine, or accept the results of a presidential election. Do
we really think we can transform the culture of another nation?
So to each of our witnesses, when we return in the second
round, I will ask you this question: Why do you believe the
Afghan military and civilian government collapsed so quickly?
With that I will yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much. Senator Kaine.
Senator Ernst, please.
Senator Ernst. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair and gentlemen,
thank you very much for being here today.
Unfortunately, this morning's hearing is required due to
the haphazard withdrawal of United States forces, American
citizens, and many of our Afghan partners. However, we do want
to thank the men and women in uniform that assisted the
evacuation of those that were able to make it out, and of
course, to those that have given their service and sacrifice
over the past two decades of the global war on terror.
The loss of our servicemembers and abandonment of Americans
and Afghan allies last month was an unforced, disgraceful
humiliation that did not have to happen. The President put a
cheap political victory, a withdrawal timeline timed to the
20th anniversary of 9/11 on his calendar and executed his
vision with little regard for American lives or the real
threats that we face.
I do appreciate your open, your honest and expert
participation in communicating to this Committee what went
wrong. I think our American citizens are at a real crossroads
right now where they are questioning the leadership from this
President and this administration. President Biden's blunders
cannot be erased, but the United States must now account for
them through a revamped counterterrorism strategy that
recognizes the newfound momentum of terrorists and new threats
emanating from the Middle East, in addition to rising
challenges that we see coming from China and Russia. Pretty
high stakes.
Secretary Austin, I would like to start with you. Did
President Biden or any of his national security advisors
express any military or diplomatic conditions for the American
withdrawal from Afghanistan beyond the looming date of 9/11?
What were those military conditions or diplomatic conditions
that were outlined to you?
Secretary Austin. Again, once the President went through a
very deliberate decision-making process and made his decision
to exit Afghanistan, there were no additional conditions placed
on it.
Senator Ernst. Can you tell me that he did take into
consideration military or diplomatic conditions, and what were
those conditions that he was weighing as he was making those
decisions?
Secretary Austin. Sure. One of the things that all of us
wanted to see happen was for this conflict to end with a
diplomatic solution, and so one of the thing that we certainly
wanted to see was progress being made in the Doha negotiations.
We did not see, or he did not see any progress being made, and
there was really not much of a bright future for that process.
Senator Ernst. General Milley had stated earlier that his
recommendation is always, as any military commander should do,
should be conditions based. We have to be able to evaluate
whether those conditions are achievable, and if we can
successfully complete those. It sounds like there were very
little consideration given to diplomatic or military
conditions. The diplomatic, again, going to conditions based,
the diplomatic end to it, I think General Milley, you also said
that the military mission would end on the 31st, and transition
to a diplomatic mission. But I do not understand how we fulfill
a diplomatic mission after August 31st, when there are
absolutely no diplomats on the ground in Afghanistan. They are
gone. They have been evacuated. Who do we hand that mission off
to when there is nobody there to complete it?
So can you then say that the President directed you,
Secretary Austin, to execute an unconditional withdrawal from
Afghanistan? Unconditional. August 31st, done.
Secretary Austin. Once he made the decision to withdraw, I
mean, that was the decision, to leave. We certainly wanted to
make sure that we shaped conditions so that our embassy could
maintain a presence there, and continue to engage the
government of Afghanistan. So protection of the embassy was
pretty important.
Senator Ernst. Yes, Secretary Austin, you are extremely
diplomatic in your answers. I can appreciate that, but this was
not a conditions-based withdrawal. I think all three of you
have stated that you made your best opinion known to the
President of the United States. He had no conditions other than
to get our people out of Afghanistan, which he failed at,
because we still have Americans as well as Afghan partners in
Afghanistan.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chairman Reed. Thank you. Senator Ernst.
Senator King, please.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am finding this a very interesting hearing. It is really
two hearings at once. One is on the question of should we leave
Afghanistan, and if we should not, what should be the nature of
our troop commitment and our commitment to the country? The
other is the withdrawal, which I thought was the subject to the
hearing.
The decision to leave Afghanistan was made by President
Trump in his administration on February 29, 2020, where we
committed to leave by a date certain. There was a particular
provision, or a condition, if you will, about negotiations
between the Taliban and the Afghan Government. There was even a
date specified--March 10, 2020, less than two weeks after the
signing of the Doha agreement.
Clearly that condition was not met. My question is, and
General Milley, you were the only one who overlapped the two
administrations, were there any efforts on behalf of the prior
administration to enforce that condition of negotiation with
the Afghan Government and the Taliban?
General Milley. Senator, as I said in my opening remarks,
the conditions that were required of the Taliban, none of them
were met except one.
Senator King. My question is, did we attempt to enforce
those conditions? Did we inform the Taliban, for example, we
will not advocate for the release of 5,000 prisoners, unless
you begin negotiations, or something similar?
General Milley. I do not have personal knowledge of that,
whether or not Zal Khalizad or others were personally saying
that. I do not have personal knowledge of that. But I do know
that none of the conditions were met except the one, which is
do not attack American forces and coalition forces. That
condition was.
Senator King. The conditions were not met, but you
testified that the troop withdrawals and the release of the
5,000 Taliban prisoners did proceed, even though the conditions
had not been met. Is that correct?
General Milley. That is correct.
Senator King. You have testified you provided your best
military advice to President Biden, that there should be a
residual force left in Afghanistan. Did you provide the same
advice to President Trump when they were negotiating the Doha
agreement?
General Milley. Again, I am not going to discuss precise
advice.
Senator King. Was it your best military judgment that a
residual force----
General Milley. At that time, yes, and that is what that a
series of memos, and advice and meetings, et cetera, in the
September, October time frame, that is exactly what they were,
and you can talk to Secretary Esper and he can tell you the
same thing.
Senator King. So your military judgment did not change on
January 20th.
General Milley. No.
Senator King. Thank you. General McKenzie, you touched on
something that you were the only one to mention it in this
entire hearing. In my judgment, one of the key moments was the
fleeing of President Ghani, and that that is, in fact, what
really pulled the rug out from under the military and
demoralized the entire government. That was really not the
beginning of the end but the end of the end. Do you have some
thoughts on that?
General McKenzie. I think, when we consider what happened
to the Afghan military, you have to consider it completely
linked to what happened to the Afghan Government. When your
president flees literally on no notice in the middle of the day
that has a profoundly debilitating effect on everything else.
Now, events were pretty far along on 15 August, so I would
note that it, but I do believe it is possible they could have
fought and held parts of Kabul had the president stayed. I
think that really demoralized those remnants of Afghans, and
there were still considerable Afghan combat formations around
Kabul on 15 August. I believe they were really disorganized by
that, and led to the Taliban really pushing in as fast as they
wanted to go into the center of the city.
Senator King. I do want to point out for the record that,
to my knowledge and memory, this Committee never had a hearing
on the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in February of
2020. It now appears that would have been a beneficial hearing
because we could have discussed all of these issues, but we
were already on the path for withdrawal. The withdrawal date
under that agreement was May 1, 2021. President Biden extended
that--I do not know whether it was a negotiation or some kind
of understanding--until the end of August.
General Milley, in questioning from Senator Cotton, you
talked about your military advice about leaving on August 31st
versus staying to try to help additional Americans leave. Was
it the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs that the
August 31st date should be observed? If so, why was that the
military advice?
General Milley. It was of the Joint Chiefs plus General
McKenzie, Admiral Vasely, and General Donahue. The reason is
risk to force, risk to mission, and risk to the American
citizens.
On the 1st of September, we were going to go to war with
the Taliban--of that there was no doubt--and we were already in
conflict with ISIS. So at that point in time, if we stayed past
the 31st, which militarily is feasible but it would have
required an additional commitment of significant amounts of
forces, probably 18th Airborne Corps, 15,000, 20,000, maybe
25,000 troops, we would have had to re-seize Bagram, we would
have had to clear Kabul of the 6,000 Taliban that were already
in Kabul.
That is what would have happened, beginning on the 1st.
That would have resulted in significant casualties on the U.S.
side, and it would have placed American citizens that are still
there at greater risk, in my professional view and in the view
of all the other generals. So on the 25th, we recommended that
we transition to a diplomatic option beginning on the 31st.
Senator King. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator King.
Senator Tillis, please.
Senator Tillis. General Milley, you said that the Taliban
had not lived up to the terms of the agreement. Give me a rough
date of when they first breached terms of the agreement. When
you said they were not living up to the terms of the Doha
agreement, what was the first evidence that they were not
living up to the terms of the agreement?
General Milley. Yes, the memo signed 29 February, so
through, really the fighting season of the summer of 2020. One
of the requirements, for example----
Senator Tillis. Okay. So more than a year ago?
General Milley. Absolutely.
Senator Tillis. Okay. I do not buy the idea that this
President was bound by a decision made by a prior President.
This was not a treaty, and it was clearly an agreement where
the Taliban were not living up to it. This President, President
Biden, could have come in, reasserted conditions, and
completely changed the timeline. He is not bound by the
President's prior agreements any more than he was bound by
President Trump's decision to exit the Iran Deal or the Paris
Climate Accords. So, that to me is a false narrative.
I also have to say that this President, moving forward,
with a failed construct, has cost American lives or has cost
lives of North Carolinians. We were working on a case with an
SIV holder who had a sister who worked for an NGO, Save the
Children, and a father who was in the Afghan police force, and
as we were working to get through them, the Taliban--Taliban
2.0 is every bit as ruthless as the one that we replaced in
2001--they sent pictures of the slit throats of people that we
were working personally with. They killed this pregnant woman,
they killed this police officer, and they are killing countless
other people now, that we should have gotten out.
Secretary Austin, I think we do owe a debt of gratitude to
the people that got 120,000, 124,000 people out. It was a
logistical success, but this is a strategic failure.
General McKenzie, General Miller said 2,500. I have heard
you and General Milley also say you agreed with the idea. You
personally agreed. You did not necessarily say that you
recommended to the President, the 2,500. I understood from
General Miller that there was a broader context within that
recommendation. There were 2,500 fighters, United States
fighters, but I understand almost 5,000 NATO allies, or 5,000
others that were willing to remain on the ground, and as
General Miller said, ``Keep the hand on the shoulder of the
Afghan national forces, so that we could have a counter to the
Taliban.'' Is that correct, that it was bigger than that, it
was probably the 7,000 range?
General McKenzie. Senator, you are correct. Our NATO allies
would have been on board for----
Senator Tillis. Also a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
presence with bases out there for human intelligence, to help
us be more precise, more exquisite with the execution of
whatever operations we had on the ground?
General McKenzie. That is correct, sir.
Senator Tillis. Okay. Now I know that you will not say that
you advised the President, but is it fair to say that when
General Miller, he said that he advised all of you on his
recommendations, it sounds like two of the three of you agreed
with it. Is it at least fair to say that in the interagency
discussion that those recommendations were made and that in
your best military advice it would have kept the situation
stable in Afghanistan?
General McKenzie. Well, I have stated consistently that my
position was if you go below 2,500, you are going to look at a
collapse of the Afghan military. I did not foresee it to be
days. I thought it would take months. But the rest of the
ecosystem would go out with it too, that the NATO partners are
going to leave, the interagencies are going to leave, and you
are going to leave the Afghans by themselves.
Senator Tillis. Did any of you embrace the notion that the
2,500 plus the several thousand, I think an estimated 5,000
NATO allies and partners who were willing to stay there as
well, did any of you agree with the President's assessment,
that if he acted on that recommendation that he would
ultimately have to send tens of thousands more United States
servicemembers to Afghanistan, that if we held that one that it
would ultimately just delay the day where we would be back to
100,000 or 50,000 United States Forces in Afghanistan?
General McKenzie. Senator, these discussions were occurring
in January, February, March. They are separate from the late
August discussions, so I want to make that point clear.
Senator Tillis. But in your best military judgment, do you
believe that the recommendations that General Miller put forth,
with some 2,500, and I think General Milley said maybe flex up
at 3,500, do you believe that that would have sown the seeds
for ultimately having to send tens of thousands of United
States servicemembers back to Afghanistan, as the President has
said, publicly?
General McKenzie. Senator, I believe there was a risk you
would incur increasing attacks by the Taliban. That was a risk
withholding at 2,500. That was a very clear risk. But I will
tell you, Senator, I am really humbled recently by my ability
to deduce what the Taliban would or would not do, so I think it
is hard to know.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, and next round I will get onto
the fate of the SIV holders and people that are stranded in
Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Tillis.
Let me recognize Senator Warren, and I am going over for
the vote. Senator Hirono will preside in my absence.
Senator Warren, please.
Senator Warren. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
I want to begin by zooming out because it is not possible
to understand our final months in Afghanistan without viewing
them in the context of the 20 years that led up to them. Anyone
who says the last few months were a failure but everything
before that was great clearly has not been paying attention.
In 2015, the Taliban conquered its first province since
2001. By October 2018, the Afghan Government controlled only 54
percent of the 407 districts, and by May 2020, the Afghan
Government controlled less than a third of Afghan's 407
districts. We poured money and support and air cover, and the
Afghan Government continued to fail.
By 2021, it was clear that 2,500 troops could not
successfully prop up a government that had been losing ground
and support to the Taliban for years. Secretary Austin, I
understand that you advised President Biden to stay in
Afghanistan, but as you acknowledge, staying or withdrawing is
a decision for the President alone. So I want to focus on what
happened next. Once President Biden made the decision to have
U.S. Forces leave the country, who designed the evacuation?
Secretary Austin. Well Senator, again, I will not address
the advice I gave the President. I would just say that, in his
calculus, this was not risk free, and the Taliban, as we said
earlier in this hearing, were committed to recommencing their
operations against our forces. His assessment was that in order
to sustain that and continue to do things that benefited the
Afghans, that would require at some point that he increase our
presence there in Afghanistan.
So once he made the decision, then of course, from a
military perspective, in terms of the retrograde of the people
and the equipment, that planning was done by Central Command,
and certainly principally by General Miller. Very detailed
planning, and then we came back and briefed the entire
interagency on the details of that plan.
Senator Warren. Okay, so the military planned the
evacuation. Did President Biden follow your advice on executing
on the evacuation plan?
Secretary Austin. He did.
Senator Warren. Did President Biden give you all the
resources that you needed?
Secretary Austin. From my view, he did.
Senator Warren. Did President Biden ignore your advice on
the evacuation at any point?
Secretary Austin. No Senator, he did not.
Senator Warren. Did he refuse any request for anything that
you needed or asked for?
Secretary Austin. No.
Senator Warren. So the President followed the advice of his
military advisors in planning and executing this withdrawal. As
we have already established, the seeds for our failure in
Afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. So let me ask
you one more question, Secretary Austin. Knowing what you know
now, if we had stayed in Afghanistan for another year, would it
have made a fundamental difference?
Secretary Austin. Again, it depends on what size you remain
in at, and what your objectives are. There are a range of
possibilities, but if you stayed there at a force posture of
2,500, certainly you would be in a fight with the Taliban, and
you would have to reinforce yourself.
Senator Warren. I appreciate your looking at it as a
fighter, but I would also add, one more year of propping up a
corrupt government, and an army that would not fight on its own
was not going to give us a different outcome. Anyone who thinks
differently is either fooling himself, or trying to fool the
rest of us.
I believe President Biden had it exactly right. Withdrawing
was long overdue. The withdrawal was conducted in accordance
with the advice of his military advisors, who planned and
executed every step of this withdrawal.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Hirono. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Warren.
Senator Sullivan, you are recognized.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, this
Committee recognizes that your constitutional duty is to follow
the lawful orders of the President or resign if you do not
agree with his decisions and policies like Secretary Mattis
did. But I want to emphasize you do not have a duty,
constitutional or otherwise, to cover for the Commander in
Chief when he is not telling the truth to the American people.
With that, I have a few questions that I would like you to keep
short, concise answers to.
On August 18th, in a media interview to the American
people, the President said that none of his military advisors
told him that he should keep United States forces in
Afghanistan. General Milley, that was a false statement by the
President of the United States, was it not?
General Milley. I did not even see the statement, to tell
you the truth.
Senator Sullivan. I am reading you a truthful statement.
That was a false statement.
General Milley. Yes, look----
Senator Sullivan. Look, I do not have a lot of time.
General Milley. Okay.
Senator Sullivan. Was that a false statement to the
American people?
General Milley. I am not going to categorize a statement of
the President of the United States.
Senator Sullivan. General McKenzie, was that a false
statement? The President said none of his commanders said that
he should keep troops in Afghanistan. Was that a false
statement by the President of United States? Remember you do
not have a duty to cover for the President when he is not
telling the truth. Was that a false statement or not?
General McKenzie. I have given you my opinion on the
matter. I have given you my judgment on it, and I will let----
Senator Sullivan. I think we all know it was a false
statement. Okay, that is number one. President also said, ``If
there is an American citizen left behind in Afghanistan, the
military is going to stay until we get them out.'' General
Milley, was that statement--did that statement turn out to be
true or untrue by the President?
General Milley. I think that was the intent, but we gave
him a recommendation on the 25th of August to terminate the
mission on the 31st of August.
Senator Sullivan. The statement was untrue.
Let me ask another question. General Milley, General
McKenzie, the President, around the same time said, quote, ``al
Qaeda was gone from Afghanistan,'' told the American people
that. Was that true or not true? Was al Qaeda gone from
Afghanistan in mid-August? True or not true?
General Milley. Al Qaeda is still in Afghanistan. They were
there in mid-August. They have been severely disrupted and
attritted over many, many years. They are not----
Senator Sullivan. So it was not true.
General McKenzie, was that true or not?
General McKenzie. Al Qaeda was present in Afghanistan.
Senator Sullivan. Okay, so it was not true.
Let me make one final one. The President called this entire
retrograde operation, ``an extraordinary success.'' General
Miller, in his testimony, disagreed with that assertion.
General Milley, was this Afghanistan retrograde operation an
extraordinary success?
General Milley. There were two operations, Senator.
Senator Sullivan. Just yes or no. I have a lot of
questions. Was this an extraordinary success?
General Milley. Senator with all due respect, there were
two operations. There was the retrograde, which Miller was in
charge of, and there is the NEO, which CENTCOM was in charge
of. The retrograde was executed, and ended by mid-July, with a
residual force to defend the embassy, the NEO----
Senator Sullivan. You and I have discussed this. Would you
use the term ``extraordinary success'' for what took place in
August in Afghanistan?
General Milley. That is the non-combatant evacuation, and I
think one of the other senators said it very well. It was a
logistical success, but a strategic failure, and I think those
are two different terms.
Senator Sullivan. Look, I think--here is the problem. I
think the whole world knows--this is the cover of The Economist
magazine, ``Biden's debacle,'' that had stories in it, articles
in it called, ``The fiasco in Afghanistan is a huge and
unnecessary blow to America's standing.'' That was one article.
``Joe Biden blames everybody else.'' That is another article.
``China sees America humbled.'' That is another article.
Gentlemen, the problem here, these are not marginal
misstatements by the President to the American people. These
are dramatic, obvious falsehoods that go to the very heart of
the foreign policy fiasco we have all witnessed. These are life
and death deceptions that the President of the United States
told the American people.
I have one final question. I might leave it because it is a
long one for the follow up, but here is the anger. I have never
seen my constituent more angry about an issue than this, and it
is the combination of everybody knowing that this is a debacle,
and yet people defending it as a, quote, ``extraordinary
success.'' Here is the biggest: no accountability. No
accountability. You gentlemen have spent your lives, and I
completely respect it, troops in combat. You have been in
combat. You have had troops under your command killed in
action. You have been part of an institution where
accountability is so critical, and the American people respect
that, up and down the chain where there are instances,
commanders get relieved up and down the chain. We see it. The
McCain incident, the Fitzgerald incident, the AAV incident with
the Marine Corps, three-star, four-star flag officers, all
relieved of duty.
But on this matter, on the biggest national security fiasco
in a generation, there has been zero accountability, no
responsibility from anybody. So I will ask this final question
of all of you. Senator Cotton talked about it.
Senator Hirono. Senator Sullivan?
Senator Sullivan. Madam Chair, if I----
Senator Hirono. Could you submit your question for the
record, please? We are trying to keep to a 5-minute questioning
round. You can ask the question in your second round, if you
would like. Thank you.
Senator Peters.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to
each and every one of you for your service to our country.
I want to return to some of the comments made by Senator
Warren, and looking at over the last 20 years. I think if ever
we are going to have a strategic assessment of what happened in
Afghanistan, it is important that any kind of strategic
assessment is not just to look at the present, but to look at
the past, and look at the future, and look at all three of
those elements as we are making that kind of assessment. If we
are going to do that, we have to look over the 20 years that we
were in Afghanistan, and we are going to have to have a pretty
hard-nosed assessment of that. General Milley, you mentioned
that strategic decisions have consequences, and there are a lot
of lessons to be learned over 20 years of our involvement in
Afghanistan.
I sat at this table here at Armed Services for many years,
served in the House before. I have had an opportunity to travel
to Afghanistan on a couple of occasions, and when we have ever
asked our military leaders the situation in Afghanistan, we
often heard, ``Well, it is a stalemate right now, but this year
coming up is going to be different. This year will be
different.'' I heard that year after year. ``This year is going
to be different. Yeah, I know we were in a stalemate but this
year is going to be different.''
There is one commentator that said, and Secretary Austin, I
want you to comment on this, he said that we did not really
have a 20-year war in Afghanistan. We had 20 one-year wars in
Afghanistan. How would you respond to that?
Secretary Austin. I would certainly say, Senator that is
something to think about. You know, you have heard me say in my
opening comments that we have to ask ourselves some tough
questions. Did we have the right strategy? Did we have too many
strategies? If you are reshaping that strategy every year, one
year at a time, then that has consequences.
So I think that is something we got to go back and look at,
and we also have to look at the impact, the effect of the
corruption that was in the environment, weak leadership,
changes in leadership, and a number of factors.
Senator Peters. Well, I want to build on that, because I
think it is important, Secretary Austin. For example, General
Milley, when you commanded NATO ground forces in Afghanistan 8
years ago, you called 2013 a critical year for the Afghan
security forces because it was the first time they had taken
responsibility for their security across the country. Secretary
Austin, you offered similar assessment in 2015 and 2016, during
testimony before this Committee. As CENTCOM commander, you
emphasized that there were 326,000 ANSF forces, and they were
ready to lead security operations.
I will just say, from most my experience, especially when I
was in Afghanistan, the input that I got from our commanders
was that ``This year is going to be different. We are going to
be able to do things better.'' But I got a completely different
assessment when I went to the mess hall and ate with the
soldiers and the marines and the folks on the ground, who said,
``I do not trust these folks that we are with. I do not know if
they are going to fight. In fact, they do not even show up.
They get their paycheck, but they do not show up.''
Now there may have been some instances where they have
performed, and I know you have highlighted some of those, but
my question from a strategic standpoint is, did we just become
fixated perhaps on some tactical performance from our forces,
their forces, and forget to measure the Afghan Security Force's
actual institutional health as a fighting force that could
sustain a fight, even though they were in an incredibly weak
economy and a whole host of complicated cultural issues?
Secretary Austin. Clearly questions that we have to drill
deep on. At one point, as you know, Senator, we had a number of
advisors down to fairly low levels. As we began to lift the
numbers of advisors that we had there and scale back on the
people that we had interfacing with the Afghans on a daily
basis we began to lose that fingertip feel. So our ability to
assess, with some degree of certainty, continue to erode, the
smaller that we got.
Senator Peters. My sense is that that was what we were
hearing for years. It was not just at the end, that this was an
endemic problem for over a decade. So hopefully we will have
the opportunity to do that.
That is my final question, Secretary Austin. What are we
actually doing to learn from the conclusion of these military
operations, particularly from a strategic assessment point of
view, when it comes to end-of-conflict transition? We are going
to have potentially other operations like this, even in great
power competition.
Secretary Austin. Yes, so as we always do, Senator, we are
going to take a hard look at ourselves in terms of what we did
over the last 20 years, what worked, what did not work, and we
are going to learn from those lessons and make sure that we
incorporate that into our planning, and our strategic
assessment going forward.
Senator Peters. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. [Presiding.] Thank you very much, Senator
Peters.
Senator Cramer, please.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank all three of
you for your service and for being here, and God bless the men
and women under your command.
General McKenzie, is it true that United States Forces had
the ISIS-K cell under surveillance prior to August 26th, and
could have struck them before the deadly terrorist attacks at
Kabul, but were not given the authority to strike?
General McKenzie. No, that is not true.
Senator Cramer. I noticed that the President was quick to
take a victory lap after the first strike and push this tough
guy image he is so famous for. He once threatened to have union
bosses beat me up. He said things like, ``Just do it. If we
find more, we will strike them.'' Of course, this was after he
said of the ISIS-K leaders, ``We will hunt you down.'' He talks
tough. He is going to go get them.
I also noticed he has been equally silent, taking no
responsibility for the strike on innocent civilians, including
children, that was in part caused by, in my view, his insecure
need to appear tough. He just let you take the blame, General
McKenzie. But what I really worry about is the air crews who
actually were pressured into pulling the trigger that terrible
day.
Secretary Austin, as you know, the North Dakota Air
National Guard operates reapers around the world, and I know
what kind of pressure those air crews are under, and the level
of responsibility they feel to accomplish their missions
properly. I am worried that whoever was operating the aircraft
involved in the tragic 29th August strike was set up to fail by
an administration that wanted a political victory more than
they wanted an American victory.
Have you reached out to the air crew to make sure that they
understand it is not their fault, that there are seven dead
children?
Secretary Austin. I have not, Senator. As you probably
know, I have directed a three-star review of this incident.
General McKenzie did an initial investigation and I have
directed a three-star review, and so I will not make any
comments.
Senator Cramer. There certainly seemed to be a lot of
indications that a terrorist event was likely, if not imminent,
leading up to the ISIS-K bombing on the 26th. Why were our
military members still exposed after that threat was known,
General McKenzie?
General McKenzie. The purpose of our force at the airfield
was to bring American citizens and Afghans at risk out. In
order to do that, you had to have the gates open. You had to
process people.
You are right, there were a lot of threats, and we worked
very hard to minimize those threats, and you try to balance it.
Every once in a while, the bad guys sneak one in on you. This
is an example of where that occurred. It was not through any
lack of attention to trying to find those cells or looking hard
for them. We did find a number and we did, in fact, which I
will be happy to talk about in closed session, we did, in fact,
enable and stop those attacks from occurring. This one we were
not successful on.
Senator Cramer. So speaking of that I want to drill down
just a minute since I have a couple. The Taliban was
controlling the checkpoints obviously around the airport, and
you had indicated, General McKenzie, that the United States at
that time had, you called it a pragmatic relationship of
necessity with the Taliban. Did we share any information with
the Taliban about the ISIS-K threat, and if so, how did the
Taliban respond to it? In other words, how did they get in? Is
it possible that they let them in on purpose?
General McKenzie. It is possible that they let them in on
purpose, but the body of intelligence indicates that is not in
fact what happened. One event happened and that is a terrible
tragic event. A lot of other events did not happen because that
outer circle, the Taliban forces, were there.
Look, I defer to no one in my disdain for the Taliban and
my lack of trust for them, but I believe they actually
prevented other attacks from occurring. This event, someone got
through. I believe there were other times when people did not
get through.
Senator Cramer. All right. Look, the reality is there are
patriotic Americans all over the country and certainly in North
Dakota they are really upset. I mean, they are genuinely pissed
off. They sense that there is a lot of sort of political
positioning, and apologizing, and rationalizing, and no one is
really saying anything other than it was an extraordinary
event. Now some of you have admitted that it was not perfect, I
think were your words, General Milley, but ``extraordinary
success'' just rankles them when they hear that. Especially
when they see that out of the 124,000 people that were brought
to the United States, we do not know much about a whole bunch
of them, and yet we know a whole bunch about people that were
not brought back to the United States, and they are upset. They
are really, really upset. I know you know that. I think you are
seeing the reflection of that in their elected representatives,
and this afternoon, we will probably drill down a little more
on some things. But I look forward to the closed session as
well, General McKenzie, to learn more about August 26th.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Cramer.
Senator Manchin, please.
Senator Manchin. Thank you very much, and first of all,
thank all three of you. I appreciate your service to our
country, and I never have doubted your unwavering commitment to
defend our country and our constitution.
I am having a hard time. I am old enough to understand. I
remember Vietnam very well. I was in line to go there, and had
an injury in my playing ball at West Virginia University (WVU),
and that did not happen. Anyway, I just cannot figure out, I
cannot explain to the younger generation, to my children and
grandchildren, how do we get into this and never get out?
We did not learn from Vietnam? That was a horrible exit. I
remember that very vividly. This was even worse than that, as
far as my recall. I do not know what lessons we are taking from
this right now.
But I look back at lack of an Authorization for Use of
Military Force (AUMF). We had an open-end AUMF. We still have
an open-end AUMF. If we would have had an AUMF and basically
had a time-certain and specific goal, do any of you think that
could have made a difference? Do you think, I mean, hindsight
being 20/20, what did we learn from these mistakes? How do we
prevent them again? We thought from Vietnam we learned not to
go in and try to change a nation, and here we are, trading
partners with Vietnam. Is that same going to end up with
Afghanistan?
I cannot comprehend any of it, to be honest with you, and I
have no explanation. So anybody that wants to help me, and
General Milley, I know that you have a great knowledge of
history, and how we have gotten into situations, and how maybe
we should keep from repeating them.
General Milley. Yes. As I said, Senator Manchin, in my
opening comment.
Senator Manchin. I am sorry. I was conducting an Energy and
National Resources (ENR) meeting and I was not able to be here
for that. I am so sorry.
General Milley. Okay. Sorry. I mentioned that there have
been four Presidents, 20 commanders on the ground, seven or
eight Chairman of Joint Chiefs, dozens of Secretaries of
Defense, et cetera. Outcomes like this are not determined in,
you know, the last 5 days, the last 20 days, or the last year
for that matter. Outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that
is a strategic failure, the enemy is in charge in Kabul, there
is no way else to describe that. That outcome is a cumulative
effect of 20 years, not 20 days, and there are a huge amount of
strategic, operational, and tactical lessons that need to be
learned from this, some of them in the military sphere, the
narrow military sphere. One of them, for example, is the
mirror-imaging of the building of the Afghan National Army
based on American doctrine, tactics, techniques, and
procedures. That made a military that may, I am going to wait
full evaluation, but may have been overly dependent upon us,
our presence, contractors, and higher tech systems, in order to
fight a counterinsurgency war. That is one area that needs to
be fully explored.
Another is the intel. How did we miss collapse of an army
and a government that big, that fast, in only 11 days? That
needs to be pulled apart. Then there are other factors that are
not strictly military, but things like the legitimacy of the
government, corruption, the parasitic nature of the police
forces. There is a whole series of 10 or 20 that I wrote down
just a week or two ago, that need to be looked at, and looked
at in depth, and very seriously and comprehensively over time.
Senator Manchin. Do we know where the president, the former
president of Afghanistan is today and how much money he took
with him? Do we have any idea?
General Milley. Secretary Austin, do you have any idea?
Secretary Austin. I think that he may be in UAE [United
Arab Emirates], senator. I am not certain of that. That is what
the last report that I had. In terms of any money that he may
have taken with him, I have no knowledge of any amounts of
money.
Senator Manchin. You all have not been able to--I mean
there is no way that we can trace that through the banking
institutions? No way that we have any insight on that
whatsoever? There has to be exchanges going back and forth
because I am sure he is not keeping it in the bank of
Afghanistan.
Secretary Austin. Defense does not have any insight on
that, Senator, but certainly I am not sure if the law
enforcement agencies----
Senator Manchin. We will check with Treasury. Maybe
Treasury might. I am just looking for some answers that maybe
are not answerable. Everyone has asked the questions of how do
we prevent this from happening again? Why did we not see it?
There is not a person that is returned that I have spoken to in
special ops that were there, when they returned. I was there a
couple times in 2006. I was there in 2011. I was there. But
every time it got worse. It did not get better.
So this could not be a surprise. They never were going to
step to the plate. It could not have been a surprise that they
would not fight. They never had allegiance to a country. I
mean, we knew that. The special ops people said it gets worse
every day. It does not get better. Every mission was worse. We
used to drive from Kabul to Bagram. After I went back the
second time, hell, we could not do that. I mean, it got so bad,
everything got bad.
I have got to tell this one. It drives me absolutely insane
to see the television at night, and see the Taliban, and all of
them wearing our uniforms, wearing our night vision, doing
everything, using everything we have, our Mine Resistant Ambush
Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) and everything else that we left
there. I just cannot believe it. I cannot even get an
accounting of how much equipment we really did leave. I know
how many aircraft we left, and I know how many basically MRAPs
and all the different things. But not to plan better to take
that equipment out, it was unbelievable.
Secretary Austin. I would just flag for you, Senator, that
all of the equipment that we had, that we used, was retrograded
by General Miller as a part of the drawdown. Thousands of tons
of equipment, and whatever high-end equipment that we had, that
we were using. The equipment that the Afghan Security Forces
had as the Taliban took over is the equipment that you see. Of
course, all of the helicopters that were left on the airfield
at HKIA, I asked General McKenzie to demilitarize those so that
they could not ever be used again.
We took, we retrograded all of our equipment that we were
supposed to retrograde as we drew down.
Senator Manchin. Only thing I can say in finishing up is
that I would hope that God would bless America to have the
intelligence not to repeat what we continually have seen does
not work. With you all, expertise you have, and knowledge you
are gaining from all this, please, please help us from ever,
ever repeating what we have done.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Manchin.
Senator Scott, please.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman. First of all, I want to
thank each of you for being here. General Milley, one thing I
hope at some point you will address is the context of your
calls with regard to the Chinese and whether what has been
alleged is that you would warn them if there was going to be an
attack. Also, address whether there was any intelligence
indicating that the Chinese were actually nervous.
One thing that surprised me about what has been going on in
the last few months is the President has absolutely blamed
everyone else but himself for the botched withdrawal of
Afghanistan. He, as the President of the United States, he has
ability to make these decisions. He can take all the advice he
wants, but he gets to make the final decisions. He has blamed
previous administrations. He has blamed the people of
Afghanistan. He has blamed the military of Afghanistan, which I
think is absolutely disingenuous. The people in the White House
have even blamed our own military.
Secretary Austin, some things you have said today actually
surprised me. You said you were ready, you said you exceeded
expectations, you said our credibility is solid, and you have
said the President followed your advice on the evacuation. Let
me just ask you, the first question is, do you still believe
that the most effective withdrawal strategy involves extracting
the military, abandoning our military installations, and
reducing our use of force and ability to use force before we
got our civilians out?
Secretary Austin. Thanks, Senator. First of all, the plan
was to--the decision was to end our military operations and
draw down all of our forces and retrograde all of our
equipment, and that was accomplished. General Miller, I think,
put together a great plan and executed that plan, in accordance
with the plan.
Also a key part of the plan was to maintain an embassy in
Kabul, and maintaining that embassy would allow us to continue
to engage the government, to continue to provide resources to
support the Afghan Security Forces. So the plan was to leave a
diplomatic presence there. In conjunction with that plan, we
also were going to leave a small military force there to help
secure the embassy. So that was the plan, Senator.
Senator Scott. But you did not address the issue that--you
all made all these--it was your plan. You have acknowledged it
was your plan, and your plan said you would do all these things
before we got our civilians out. I mean, when, in the history
of this country, have we ever had the U.S. military say, and
have a plan that we will take our military out first before we
take our civilians? I cannot imagine that.
Secretary Austin. When you say civilians, are you talking
about----
Senator Scott. American citizens.
Secretary Austin.----American citizens?
Senator Scott. Yes.
Secretary Austin. Well, the American citizens would come
out once a non-combatant evacuation is declared, and until that
point, typically we do not evacuate all the citizens in the
country.
Senator Scott. But we did not here. There are American
citizens still there.
Secretary Austin. We continue to remain engaged and work to
get those citizens out, Senator.
Senator Scott. Why would you propose a plan that did not
get all American citizens out? I just cannot imagine ever in
the history of this country, our U.S. military would propose to
leave a country without our citizens coming out first. I mean,
have we ever done that before?
Secretary Austin. All of the American citizens would not
leave, Senator, unless there was a non-combatant evacuation.
The plan was to leave the embassy there, to continue to address
the needs of our American citizens, to engage with the
government, and so that was a part of the plan. Again, the plan
was never to evacuate the American citizens and leave the
embassy there.
Senator Scott. Did it bother you when the President went on
national television and said that he would not leave until all
American citizens were taken out? Did it bother you when he
said that, because it clearly was not truthful?
Secretary Austin. Now, Senator, you heard me say several
times that we are going to work as hard as we can, for as long
as we can, to get every American citizen out that wants to come
out, and we continue to do that to this day.
Senator Scott. Well, I am running out of time, but one
thing I want when we have next round, I want to understand what
decisions would you make differently today to save those 13
lives of service men and women that we lost at the Kabul
airport.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley. Senator, if I could comment on your first
opening comment, if I may?
Chairman Reed. Go ahead, sir.
General Milley. Yes. I am happy to lay out every detail in
all the intel to you as an individual, to any other member, or
to a committee, or anything you want on these Chinese calls at
your convenience. Happy to do it.
Senator Scott. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Scott.
Senator Duckworth, please.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I share my colleagues' concerns about the rapid collapse of
the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, and the Afghan
Government and the failure of our intelligence. We need some
answers.
After investing 2 decades, nearly $2 trillion, and most
importantly, the lives of almost 2,500 of American troops, our
Nation must conduct a thorough and honest review of the United
States Government's involvement in Afghanistan since the
September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks.
For the sake of current and future generations of
warfighters, we must capture the hard lessons from Afghanistan
to ensure that these lessons are not forgotten, or worse,
repeated on a future battlefield. This is our moral
responsibility as a Nation.
Gentlemen, all three of you have been involved in the war
in Afghanistan multiple times, in multiple different capacities
throughout your careers. Secretary Austin, was the situation on
the ground in Afghanistan over the last few months influenced
by previous decisions made over the course of several years?
Secretary Austin. I absolutely believe that, Senator.
Foremost among those decisions is the Doha agreement. I think
that severely impacted the morale of the military.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. Secretary Austin, if that is
the case, is it possible to have an intellectually honest
lessons learned exercise that only looks at the most recent
events in Afghanistan of the last couple of months, or must any
effective review look at the whole 20 years since September
11th?
Secretary Austin. I think you have to look at the entire 20
years. Senator, I think there are some great lessons learned
that we are going to take away once we do that. But yes, I
believe you got to look at the entire time span.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. I agree that an effective
review must be comprehensive. After all, the war in Afghanistan
was shaped by 4 different administrations and 11 different
Congresses. No party should be looking to score cheap,
partisan, political points off a multi-decade, nation-building
failure that was bipartisan in the making. Instead, Congress
should authorize a long-term effort, solely devoted to bringing
accountability and transparency to the Afghanistan war and
lessons to be learned.
That is why on Thursday I will be introducing the
Afghanistan War Study Commission. My bill would establish a
bipartisan, independent commission to examine every aspect of
the war, including the political and strategic decisions that
transformed a focused military mission into a vast nation
building campaign. Importantly, this commission must produce
actionable recommendations designed to guide the development of
real reforms. Just ask the 9/11 Commission's work inform
congressional law making efforts in the years after its
publication.
Secretary Austin, would you agree with me that such an
independent, long-term study could serve as an effective
complementary effort to the more targeted lessons learned
reviews that DOD always conducts, particularly in shedding
light on how Congress and civilian leaders from multiple
government agencies can do a better job in defining the scope
of military missions and actually enforcing legal limitations
on the use of force?
Secretary Austin. I would, and the point that you are
making, in my view, it needs to be an interagency approach to
this.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, and I do want to note that my
family and I were in Cambodia until the very end. I am an
American. I was born in Thailand, but my father worked for the
United Nations (UN), and to answer my colleague's question, my
father chose to stay as long as possible to help the Cambodian
people as long as possible, and he left after American troops
had left. The American ambassador stayed behind after American
troops had left. In fact, after the last military transport had
left, I know this because my father was on the last military
transport to leave Cambodia, and the ambassador had to travel
over land.
So yes, we do leave Americans behind, but this is all tied
to NEO operations and how that is planned, which is why I think
it is so important that we have an independent investigation.
Maybe the failure here was that we did not have a NEO plan in
place, and we did not activate it before all of our troops
left. But if that is the case, we need to learn that.
So I would ask for my colleagues, who considered this
independent commission, we put somebody in charge of it, who
was not in a decision-making capacity during the 20 years, make
it nonpartisan and let us get those lessons learned so we do
not make these same mistakes over and over again.
Our troops deserve better, and the families of the 2,500
American troops who laid down their lives to protect and defend
this Constitution, who followed the lawful order of all of
those Presidents, they deserve better than partisan fights. We
need to get some real answers.
Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
Now, let me recognize Senator Blackburn.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, we
thank you all for being here with us today.
As you have heard from all of us, the American people,
Tennesseans are wanting some answers. They deserve to hear your
testimony. I think it is unacceptable that this is the first
time that I am hearing from you in any forum, despite attempts
at outreach by both me and my staff, save a few short, all-
Senator phone calls that we have had. I want to emphasize, all
of us here, every one of us, answer to the American people, and
they deserve transparency and information regarding this
administration's botched and disgraceful withdrawal.
Tennesseans are really angry, and as you know, General
Milley, Tennessee is home to the 101st Airborne, one of the
most deployed divisions in the United States military. We are
also home to the specialized 160th Special Operations Aviation
Regiment (SOAR), who were among the last on the ground,
extracting United States citizens from danger in Kabul.
Tennessee National Guard units have deployed to Afghanistan at
a high-operational tempo, as well as providing vital,
logistical services, such as refueling. We are home to more
than 400,000 veterans, many of whom have lasting physical and
psychological wounds from the time they have spent in service.
Tennesseans are heartbroken over the loss of one of our
own, Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, a patriotic American who
represented the best of all of us in the August 26th suicide
bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He made the
ultimate sacrifice.
How did we get here and how did we get to what has been a
complete letdown to most Tennesseans? I have got a few
questions. These are yes-or-no questions, so quick answers are
appreciated.
General Milley, were there options given for keeping
American troops in Afghanistan, rather than the unconditional,
chaotic withdrawal?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. You presented options and those options
were declined.
General Milley. There were options presented and debated--
--
Senator Blackburn. Yes or no.
General Milley.----and a decision was made.
Senator Blackburn. Yes or no is fine. Did you at any point
create options for keeping Bagram open beyond July 2nd?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Did you provide options for keeping
Bagram open directly to the President?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Had Bagram stayed open, would our
support to the Afghan Air Force have been more effective in
your view?
General Milley. I am sorry, I did not catch the last part.
Senator Blackburn. If Bagram had stayed open, would our
support to the Afghan Air Force have been more effective, in
your view? Yes or no.
General Milley. Frankly, I am not sure on that one, because
most of the Afghan Air Force was at different bases,
specifically at HKIA.
Senator Blackburn. President Biden keeps calling it an
extraordinary success. We have discussed some of this today. Is
leaving Americans behind an extraordinary success in your view,
Secretary Austin?
Secretary Austin. We are not leaving Americans behind.
Senator Blackburn. Yes or no is fine.
Is the killing of 13 American service men and women while
trying to secure a chaotic evacuation of the President's own
making an extraordinary success?
Secretary Austin. The loss of any civilian life is always
tragic.
Senator Blackburn. Is the fact that we failed to evacuate
most of our Afghan partners an extraordinary success, or the
fact that we have Afghans bringing child brides, people who are
hardly vetted, is that an extraordinary success?
Secretary Austin. Again, these are issues that we continue
to work to get our American citizens out and the Afghans who
helped us out.
Senator Blackburn. Let me move on. Per Article II of the
Constitution, the President may require the opinion in writing
of the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments.
Did the President ever require or request written
recommendations related to the withdrawal of the Afghan forces?
Yes or no. Secretary Austin, then General Milley, then General
McKenzie. Yes or no.
Secretary Austin. I provided our input as a part of a
policy process----
Senator Blackburn. In written form?
Secretary Austin.----that that was very well and then
deliberately run.
Senator Blackburn. We will note that you did not completely
answer that.
General Milley, in written form?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Would you make those available to us?
General Milley. I will make it available to the Committee
upon request in accordance with appropriate classifications.
Senator Blackburn. We will. We will do so.
General McKenzie, yes or no.
General McKenzie. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. You will make those available?
General McKenzie. Based on guidance from the Secretary.
Senator Blackburn. Each of you had committed to make those
available when you went through your confirmation processes. We
will come back to you for those.
General Milley, yes or no to this. Did you talk to Bob
Woodward or Robert Costa for their book, Peril?
General Milley. Woodward, yes. Costa, no.
Senator Blackburn. Did you talk to Carol Leonning and
Philip Rucker for their book, Alone Can I Fix It?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Did you talk to Michael Bender for his
book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of
How Trump Lost? Yes or no.
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Were you accurately represented in these
books?
General Milley. I have not read any of the books so I do
not know. I have seen press reporting of it. I have not read
the books.
Senator Blackburn. Let us have you read the books and then
let us know if you are accurately presented and portrayed.
General Milley. Absolutely. Happy to do that.
Chairman Reed. Senator Blackburn, we are adhering to the 5-
minute rule.
Senator Blackburn. I yield back my time.
Chairman Reed. Thank you.
Senator Rosen, please.
Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chairman Reed, Ranking Member
Inhofe for holding today's very important hearing.
A critical part of this Committee's oversight
responsibilities, it is an opportunity for the American people
to get answers about our withdrawal from Afghanistan and how we
plan to counter terrorist threats in the future. I also want to
sincerely thank the brave men and women, who served our country
in Afghanistan, many who made the ultimate sacrifice, and, of
course, their families as well.
Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General McKenzie, I
appreciate you all being here to address lingering concerns we
have about the last 2 decades of war generally, and the past 2
months in particular. You are all men of honor and integrity,
who have served our country nobly, and I so look forward to
your candid responses, to my questions, even if they require
admitting that in some cases, serious mistakes were made.
Like all Senate offices, as the Taliban approached Kabul
and eventually took over the city and the country, my team and
I worked to help vulnerable individuals evacuate. These were
people who, in many cases, had the State Department's approval
to leave Afghanistan for the United States or a third-party
country, but due to crowds, Taliban checkpoints, or a
legitimate fear of being killed along the way, they could just
not physically get to a gate to present their paperwork, no
matter how many times they tried, or no matter how long they
waited. My office worked was CENTCOM and the Afghanistan Task
Force to try to coordinate opportunities just to grab these
people from the crowd so they could present their paperwork and
flee to safety, but unfortunately, again, these efforts were to
no avail.
As these individuals continue to wait for help that may
never come, I remain frustrated that the United States did not
set up a perimeter around Kabul, or at the very least create a
safe corridor for the S-1 visa holders to get to the airport
for their families' potential asylum seekers, who were
attempting to escape a near-certain death.
So continued support, General Milley. I appreciate the
State Department now taking the lead on evacuations, but like
our military, the State Department no longer has any presence
on the ground in Afghanistan. So I would like to ask you, sir,
does the United States military's recent experience
facilitating the evacuation from Kabul give you the confidence
that the Taliban will be honest brokers in working with our
diplomats to help vulnerable Afghan nationals leave the
country?
General Milley. I think that what we have seen so far,
since the 31st, is some Americans have gotten out through
diplomatic means, and they have reached safety through either
overland routes or through aircraft. I do not know all the
details, but I cannot imagine that did not happen without
Taliban facilitation.
Senator Rosen. Well, we can get back to Afghan nationals
helping them leave the country as well, those SIV holders and
others who supported us. But Secretary Austin, the
administration has said they will utilize every tool available
to hold the Taliban accountable if they fail to meet their
commitments, to provide safe passage for anyone who wants to
leave the country. Certainly, we know there are economic
levers, but can you elaborate on what the military tools are,
and could there be a shared interest in targeting ISIS-K?
Secretary Austin. In terms of military tools, Senator, as
you know, we have the ability to offer a range of options,
depending on what the President's objectives are. So we can do
most anything that is required of us, because we have
substantial resources.
But in terms of our cooperation with the Taliban to counter
ISIS-K, I will not venture to make any comments on that. I
would just say that we have coordinated some things that are
very narrow in scope with them to get our people out, as you
know, and to continue to further evacuate American citizens.
But I do not think it is right to make assumptions to broader
and bigger things from that coordination. They are still the
Taliban.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. I would just like to, in the few
seconds I have left and we can take these second round or off
the record, future counterterrorism operations. We have to
reorganize our counterterrorism capabilities and our assets in
the region, of course, as we move to an over-the-horizon
scenario.
Secretary Austin, General McKenzie, and we will take these
in the second round, think about, I would like the answer to
what is the plan for an enduring counterterrorism strategy that
is going to be able to address and counter the influence of the
violent extremist organizations in Afghanistan.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
Senator Hawley, please.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just sum up where I understand that we are, based on
what has been a fairly, extraordinary hearing. Here is what I
have learned so far. Number one, the President of the United
States lied to the American people about the advice that you
gave to him about the military judgment that you provided for
him. I think you have all testified to that effect now,
repeatedly.
Secondly, the State Department, and maybe the White House,
appeared to have pushed back the evacuation to such a time that
it became a catastrophe, apparently against your advice,
although I would like to learn more about that.
Third, for some reason we still do not quite understand the
Pentagon failed to plan for the potential collapse of the
security forces or the collapse of the Afghan Government,
despite there being quite a lot of warnings--Senator Kaine
referred to this earlier--quite a lot warning for really,
frankly, years that the Afghan security forces were ill-
equipped, ill-trained, and frankly, not up to the job. I do not
understand any of that. I would like to explore those things
with you in this round and the next.
But first before I do, Secretary Austin, I have to take
issue with something you just said. I know this is an
administration talking point. I have heard it out of the mouth
of the Press Secretary and others. ``We are not leaving
Americans behind.'' That was your quote of just a minute ago.
With all due respect, sir, you have left----past tense--
Americans behind. We have no presence any longer in
Afghanistan. There were hundreds of--and not just Americans
generally, civilians you left behind, against the President's
explicit commitment not to leave until all American citizens
were out and to safety.
That is not what happened and now we have people who are
desperately, frantically trying to get out of this country,
coming to me, coming to Members of this Committee asking for
help. They cannot get that help. They are stuck behind enemy
lines. So please do not tell me that we are not leaving
Americans behind. You left them behind, Joe Biden left them
behind, and frankly, it was a disgrace.
Let me ask you this though.
Secretary Austin. Senator, thanks for your help in
continuing to help get American citizens and Afghans who have
helped us out of the country, but as you have seen, we have
continued to facilitate----
Senator Hawley. Well actually, I did not ask you a
question, but since you seem to want to address the issue, so
since you do, is it not true that you left Americans behind on
August 31st?
Secretary Austin. There are Americans, there were Americans
that were still in Afghanistan, and still are.
Senator Hawley. Yes.
Secretary Austin. We continue to work----
Senator Hawley. Correct.
Secretary Austin.----to try to get those Americans out.
Senator Hawley. Yes, that is a yes. Let us not repeat,
please, the frankly falsehood that we did not leave Americans
behind.
Let me ask you this. Secretary Austin, you have alluded to
several times the fact that the military was ready--you say
this in your prepared remarks--by late April. You say military
planners had crafted a number of evacuation scenarios. You
refer later in your remarks to the fact that you were waiting
for the State Department to make a decision about evacuations.
NBC News is reporting this morning that the military wanted to
begin evacuations earlier, but the State Department and the
White House intervened and by May 8th said, ``No, we are
delaying the evacuations of our civilians.'' Can you just help
us get to the truth here? Was it your judgment and opinion that
the evacuations of civilians should have begun before the
middle of August?
Secretary Austin. We provided our input to the State
Department and again, it is the call of the State Department
to----
Senator Hawley. I understand that. I understand that, Mr.
Secretary. I am asking for what your judgment was, and I am
asking specifically about your testimony that in April you
develop evacuation scenarios, and this is reported by multiple
sources this morning in the news. I just wonder, as of last
April was it your opinion that the evacuations of civilians
should begin, should have begun before, should begin earlier
than they did?
Secretary Austin. We provided input to try to get out as
many Afghans who have helped us along the way as early as
possible, but again, the State Department made its decisions
based upon the fact that even President Ghani had engaged them
and said, ``Hey, we are very concerned about the mass exodus of
civilians from the country.''
Senator Hawley. General Milley, let me direct this to you.
Did you ever advise, in the interagency process, that the rapid
withdrawal timeline that the White House and Pentagon signed
off on, General Miller proposed effectively getting us to zero
by the middle of July, that that would negatively impact any
effort to get out our civilians? In other words, if we had
drawn down to zero by July, if we then had a civilian
evacuation order, we would be in a lot of trouble. Did you ever
advise to that effect during the interagency process? Did you
warn about that possibly of drawing down so quickly before a
civilian evacuation was underway?
General Milley. Yes, but it is more complicated than that.
The drawdown of the forces under Miller, those guys are
advisors. They are not the NEO kind of guys. The NEO troops are
Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground
Task Force (MAGTF), and elements of the 82nd Airborne Division.
That is what you need in order to do the NEO.
Those are the plans, I believe, that the Secretary is
referring to that were developed early on, and there are
specific triggers that are required in the State Department
calls ``the time of the NEO.'' The Secretary in fact on the
12th of August, started pushing forward forces in orders and on
the 14th, the ambassador, Ambassador Wilson, called the NEO.
Should that have been called earlier? I think that is an
open question that needs further exploration based on a series
of meetings. But the April piece and the drawdown of the
advisors, that is a separate and distinct task than the
retrograde of those forces. Those 2,500 advisors were not the
guys bringing out the American citizens anyway. Those were the
advisors to the Afghan Security Forces.
There were concerns that we raised throughout the
interagency that when those advisors, if the advisors were to
stay then there is a possibility that the Afghan Security
Forces would hang in there. We all knew that when we pulled the
advisors out, when we pulled the money out, that at some point
in the future, most said it was in the fall, that the Afghan
Security Forces were going to fracture and the government would
collapse.
The speed at which that happens in August is a different
animal. The advisors are already gone by mid-July. There is
still a government. There is still an Afghan army, and the
assumption was that it would remain and the mission was to keep
the embassy open, secure the embassy, transition that off to
contractors, and then all the military would be out and it
would be a diplomatic mission and there would be money in the
over-the-horizon fund.
None of that happened because that army and that government
collapsed very rapidly. As soon as those indicators came of
fracture, Secretary Austin and others throughout the government
executed and implemented a NEO plan for which there was
contingencies that were built, that was a plan for a rapid
collapse, and that was the NEO plan that General McKenzie had
come up with, and that is what was executed. That is why those
6,000 troops could deploy as rapidly as they did. That is why
all those aircraft showed up. That was not done without
planning. That was done with planning and that was done--from
an operational and tactical standpoint that was a success.
Strategically--strategically, the war is lost. The enemy is in
Kabul. So you have a strategic failure while you simultaneously
have an operational and tactical success by the soldiers on the
ground.
I think we are conflating some things that we need to
separate in this after-action review process so that we clearly
understand what exactly happened.
I am sorry for taking all that time, but I thought it was
necessary.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
Senator Kelly, please.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, let me begin by expressing my gratitude to
each of the over 800,000 Americans, many of them Arizonans, who
served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, and to their
families. I also commend our servicemembers' support of one of
the largest airlifts in our country's history. We will never
forget the achievements of the men and women who worked 24/7 in
Kabul, managed impossible conditions on the ground, and above
all, those who made the ultimate sacrifice protecting innocent
civilians. One hundred twenty-four thousand people are safe
today because of American troops and diplomats.
Still, after decades of conflict, 2,500 American soldiers
killed, and billions invested in security cooperation, the
American people deserve to know why the Afghan Government and
security forces collapsed in a matter of days and how there was
a failure to prepare for this scenario and ensure that our
people were out of the country before it fell. I think we have
established here that the withdrawal and evacuation did not
account for real-world conditions and that the intelligence was
flawed.
The United States wields incredible power as a global
leader, and our accountability must match our influence. For
our own national security and for each of those who served in
Afghanistan during our longest war, we must understand what
happened, but also look forward to ensure that our posture
allows us to provide for our national security and prevent
Afghanistan's use as a base for terrorist activity.
So I want to transition and look forward and not ask you
questions that you have already answered. General McKenzie,
America's armed forces have been on the front lines fighting
terrorists for the past 20 years. During this time, al Qaeda
and other terrorist organizations have been degraded. While our
military presence in Afghanistan has ended, our commitment to
fighting terrorism has not. With our withdrawal complete, the
Afghan Government collapsed, and the Taliban seeking to fill
the power vacuum left behind, how is Central Command postured
to prevent terrorist organizations from gaining strength in the
region?
General McKenzie. Senator, probably the details of this
would be best left to the classified session which we will have
later this afternoon. But I would tell you that I have today
headquarters that has the ability to look into Afghanistan,
albeit limited, and we have the ability to fuse the different
disciplines of intelligence to look particularly at ISIS-K and
al Qaeda. We are still refining that, the best practices on
that, but we do have a way forward. I have told this committee
before it is very hard to do this. It is not impossible to do
this.
Senator Kelly. Well I am looking forward to seeing those
details in the closed hearing. Are you confident that we can
deny organizations like al Qaeda and ISIS the ability to use
Afghanistan as a launchpad for terrorist activity?
General McKenzie. I think that is yet to be seen. I think
we are still seeing how al Qaeda and ISIS are configuring
themselves against the Taliban. We are still seeing what the
Taliban is going to do. I think it is early. I would not say I
am confident that that is going to be on the ground yet. We
could get to that point, but I do not yet have that level of
confidence.
Senator Kelly. You might have to share this in the closed
hearing, but do you have the resources necessary to accomplish
this, even as our national security pivots towards great power
or near-peer threats like China and Russia that are seeking to
expand their influence and compete with our military?
General McKenzie. Senator, I will just say I am in a
constant dialogue with the Secretary about requirements in
CENTCOM and I will give you some more details in the closed
session.
Senator Kelly. Good. Well, thank you. I know you cannot go
into much detail about the analysis that led to the August 28th
drone strike in Kabul in this open setting, but I would like to
note my serious concerns and give you the opportunity to make
any comment on how the American people can know that the
military will be able to adequately assess targets before
conducting future strikes and operations, even as we have even
fewer local intelligence and surveillance resources to
leverage.
General McKenzie. Senator, again the matter is under
investigation, but what I can tell you broadly and to restate
some things I have said earlier, I am responsible for that. It
happened in my area of responsibility so I am the responsible
officer for that strike. Moreover, I was under no pressure and
no one in my chain of command below me was under any pressure
to take that strike. We acted based on the intelligence read
that we saw on the ground. We acted several times on
intelligence that we saw and we were successful in other
occasions in preventing attacks. This time, tragically, we were
wrong and you are right to note that as we go forward in our
ability to create what we call the ecosystem that allows you to
see what is going on on the ground and put all that together,
it is going to get a lot harder to do that, particularly in
places like Afghanistan, but I can share a little more with you
later.
Senator Kelly. Well thank you, General.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Kelly.
Senator Tuberville, please.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thanks for being here today. You are part of the
most powerful military in the world. I will ask all three of
you this question, and I know how you are going to answer this.
Is this any enemy that could defeat the strongest force in the
world, the United States military? I know all of you are going
to say no.
Secretary Austin, since your confirmation in January, have
you been denied any resources with regards to Afghanistan? I
think I heard you say earlier you got everything you needed.
Secretary Austin. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Tuberville. Yes, thank you. On August 18th, you
were asked why the U.S. would not rescue Americans who could
not reach the airport. You responded, quote, ``I do not have
the capability to go out and extend operations currently in
Kabul,'' end quote. We saw the Germans, the French, the British
rescue citizens in Kabul, but from this administration, which
commands the world's most lethal fighting force, we saw nothing
but blame, weakness, and our American citizens were left to
fend for themselves. Our fighting men and women have the
courage, training, and discipline to defeat the enemy any time
anywhere and there are people all over this country wondering
why in the heck would we let our allies get their people and we
did not get ours?
I want to thank all of the hundreds of thousands of
veterans and their families who sacrificed over the past 20
years, and I truly believe our soldiers did not fail us. A lot
of our leadership did.
Secretary Austin, before President Biden even took office,
you thought we needed to leave Afghanistan. On January 19th,
you told my colleague Senator Shaheen, quote, ``I think this
conflict needs to come to an end and we need to see an
agreement reached and in accordance with what the President-
elect wants to see,'' end quote. You testified that General
Milley and General Miller had adequate resources to secure
Afghanistan at a troop level of 2,500. But you told Senator
Hawley you wanted to, quote, ``assess the situation to make
recommendations to the President,'' end quote.
I know how you are going to answer this. Did you give
advice to the President on the withdrawal from Afghanistan
without conditions, or is that the direction you got from him?
Secretary Austin. Again, my recommendations were a part of
a very deliberate process where we presented a range of options
for the President.
If I could, Senator, I would like to go back to the first
comment that you made about the question that I answered for a
reporter who asked, ``Why don't you go out and establish
cordons and create safe passageways for our people just to move
into the airport?"
At that point early on in our deployment, we only had less
than 4,000, or about 4,000 troops to secure and defend the
airport. Our troop presence continued to grow as we flowed
people in. We used a number of innovative approaches to go out
and pick up and facilitate the entry of American citizens into
the airport as the situation continued to develop. But I just
wanted to give you a little context for that answer.
Senator Tuberville. Well, thank you. We are all talking
about did President Biden know all this and, you know, my
question about withdrawal. Basically there are two options. I
can answer that. Either the President was given bad military
advice or he gave his military the terrible decision and
direction to surrender Afghanistan without condition.
I will have some more here in a few minutes. I just wanted
to make a couple of statements. The American people, especially
people I represent, they are disgusted by how this United
States surrender happened in Afghanistan, and I know you have
heard that yourselves, all three of you. America's veterans are
pissed off that their service was squandered, America's allies
are in disbelief, but America's enemies are delighted. The
Taliban are euphoric that the job that happened with our
military given the orders to retreat. President Biden abandoned
our allies who fought alongside us for 20 years. This
administration left American citizens behind enemy lines. We
left $85 billion worth of equipment that the American taxpayers
paid for, and this administration created a sanctuary for
terrorists to plot against United States for years and years to
come. It is just absolutely amazing that we did this.
So I will end it there. I know these guys need to probably
take a break, but we will see you after the break.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Tuberville.
We have completed the first round, and as I indicated we
will break at 1:00 for lunch, so we will begin the second
round.
Secretary Austin, you said in response to Senator Warren
that if we stayed past August 31st, we would certainly be back
at war with the Taliban and that you would have to reinforce
yourself. Do I interpret your testimony to mean that staying at
2,500 past the 31st was not sustainable at an acceptable level
of risk to American personnel and that we would be seeing today
casualties which could be accumulating at an unacceptable rate?
Secretary Austin. Chairman, I think the point that is been
left out of a lot of the conversation is that, you know, had we
stayed past that date that was agreed upon early on, that the
Taliban would begin to attack us, attack our forces there. We
would have to make some decisions on how to reinforce our
forces so that we could continue to operate and that would
include quite possibly increasing the force there.
Chairman Reed. Now, in the Doha agreement, President Trump
agreed to leave with certain conditions on May 1st. Those
conditions have been testified by the panel that were really
never achieved, never challenged by the Trump administration.
Would you consider that an abdication of or a surrender of that
agreement?
Secretary Austin. I certainly believe that the conditions
were preset, and again, we met--lived up to all the things that
we were obliged to do. We did not attack them and we drew down
our forces. But the Taliban, the only thing that they lived up
to was that they did not attack us.
Chairman Reed. We saw a great deal of difficulty in meeting
the deadline which was August 31st. Would it appear to you that
a May 1st deadline, as President Trump imagined, would have
caused more complications in terms of getting our equipment
out, getting our personnel out, identifying Americans who were
eligible to leave and getting them the paperwork, since you
would be doing it at a much shorter time frame?
Secretary Austin. Yes, I do not think that would have been
feasible to do that in an orderly fashion, Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much. General Milley,
regardless of whether the Taliban had met the conditions
required under Doha, were you not already in a trajectory to go
to zero forces, as I said, by May 1st, as required by the
agreement when the President took over, so that you actually
would have accelerated the process of withdrawal and
complicated it more, similar to my question to the Secretary?
General Milley. Yes, we were actually given an order to go
to zero by 15 January which was changed to go to 2,500 by 15
January and then taken down to zero by 1 May, depending on the
decisions of the new administration.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, and General Milley, your prepared
testimony indicates that the Biden administration, through the
National Security Council process, conducted a rigorous
interagency review of the situation in Afghanistan in February,
March, and April, in which the views of senior military
leadership were all given serious consideration by the
administration. You also testified that you received an order
in November 2020, you just referred to, to withdraw all forces
from Afghanistan by January 15, 2021. Was that November order
similarly informed by a rigorous interagency review?
General Milley. No.
Chairman Reed. So that was basically, I think----
General Milley. Secretary Esper submitted his
recommendations in a written format on the 9th, the day that he
was relieved, and 48 hours later we received a written order to
go to zero by 15 January.
Chairman Reed. General McKenzie, again, your advice with
regard to maintaining 2,500 troops has been reiterated
repeatedly, but you also recommended in the fall of 2020, 4,000
troops. Was that correct?
General McKenzie. Sir, that is correct. I recommended that
in the fall of 2020, when we were having deliberations, I
recommended that we hold at that level.
Chairman Reed. That was rejected by the Trump
administration?
General McKenzie. Sir, it was.
Chairman Reed. There was no recriminations against you or
anyone else? That was the President of the United States making
a decision based on his view of the world?
General McKenzie. In so far as I know, that is correct,
sir.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much.
Again, adhering to the 5-minute rule, I will cede back 8
seconds to Ranking Member Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One good way to
judge any President's decision is whether it has made American
people safer. Generals, I will ask all three of you. You have
both noted that the Taliban has not severed its relationship
with al Qaeda. President Biden stated on July 8th that al Qaeda
is gone from Afghanistan. I would ask you, is al Qaeda gone
from Afghanistan? Generals?
Secretary Austin. Senator, I think there are remnants of al
Qaeda still in Afghanistan.
Senator Inhofe. Does anyone believe that al Qaeda is gone
from Afghanistan?
President Biden stated at the United Nations recently that
this Nation is no longer at war. Is it your personal view that
al Qaeda is no longer at war with us?
Start at the right, General.
General Milley. I believe al Qaeda is in Afghanistan. I
believe they have aspirations to reconstitute, and if they
develop the capability I believe that they have aspirations to
strike. It is too early in the process right now, Senator, to
determine the capability, but I do believe they----
Senator Inhofe. Do you believe the personal view that was
stated, that al Qaeda is no longer at war with us right now?
Okay.
General Milley. I think al Qaeda is at war with the United
States, still, and never has not----
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. Does the withdrawal from
Afghanistan increase or decrease the likelihood of an al Qaeda
or ISIS attack on the United States Homeland?
General Milley. You asking me, Senator?
Senator Inhofe. Sure.
General Milley. My view is that it makes it much more
difficult for us to conduct intelligence surveillance
reconnaissance find-fix functions and then we can strike almost
from anywhere in the world, but the find-fix function, it is
more difficult. We can still do it. It is not impossible----
Senator Inhofe. Okay.
General Milley.----but it will make it more difficult.
Senator Inhofe. General Milley and General McKenzie, we
entrusted security to the Taliban, but they failed to prevent
the ISIS-K suicide bomber on August 26th. We do not really even
know if they wanted to prevent it. Now, we are in the same
situation, trusting the Taliban to prevent attacks. The Senator
from Missouri brought up and talked again about the fact of
what is the situation right now, and I think we do not really
after this several hours, have an answer to that.
I do want to bring something in the record that I do not
think has been put in the record already, and that is the
conditions under which the previous President, after making the
statement about the Taliban, not only did the previous
President have conditions, and the conditions included having a
presence, a military presence, but they also had four other
things that were stated that was conditions. One, to prevent al
Qaeda and the terrorists from threatening the United States
from Afghanistan. Secondly, to make statements and commandments
to its members against threatening the United States. Thirdly,
deny residence and visas and passports to those threatening the
United States' allies. Fourthly, begin negotiations with the
Afghan Government.
Those were conditions that were made at that time, and this
has been stated several times. It is my opinion and the opinion
of many who have testified at this hearing that there were no
conditions. I believe that is the case.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Shaheen, please.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin,
I am going to go back to my question earlier about the records
that Special Immigrant Visa applicants really need in order to
qualify for those visas, and there has not been a real--a good
process through DOD to ensure that they get those records. Is
that something that the Department is looking at, and would you
be willing to work with this Committee or others to see if we
could set up a process that would ensure that those folks who
worked with our men and women actually have the documentation
they need to show that? I know that one of the challenges is
that many of those records have been destroyed, but I would
hope there is some way that we can ensure that those people are
able to get the documentation they need to come to this
country.
Secretary Austin. Senator, let me first say that I
absolutely agree with you that the process is onerous and that
we need to do something to make it easier for those people that
have helped us to prove that they have in fact worked with us
before.
One of my departments in defense is working to propose ways
to truncate the process or come up with alternative means to
demonstrate that they have worked with us in the past. To
answer your question, we would absolutely welcome working with
the committee on this.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. I assume we should contact your
office to find who the appropriate contact person would be.
Secretary Austin. Well we will contact your office and let
you know who he is, Senator.
Senator Shaheen. Okay. General Milley and General McKenzie,
it is long been publicly reported that the Pakistani
intelligence services have maintained a close and continuing
relationship with the Taliban. Do we expect that relationship
to become more complicated now that the Taliban is in power?
Are we concerned about Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the
potential that terrorist groups might be able to get access to
those weapons? Can you talk a little bit about how you see the
relationship with Pakistan and the Taliban playing out and the
challenges that presents for the United States?
I will start. Which one of you would like to answer that?
General Milley. Go ahead, Frank. I will follow you.
General McKenzie. Senator, some of this we can talk in a
little bit more detail in the closed session.
Senator Shaheen. Okay.
General McKenzie. But I would tell you that I believe
Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban is going to become
significantly more complicated as a result of the United States
withdrawal from Afghanistan. In fact, they are going to see
pressure moving into Pakistan from Afghanistan in ways that
they have been able to deflect before because of the pressure
that we and our allies had then. So I think that is a
significant problem that Pakistan is going to face. I would
like to talk about their special weapons perhaps in the closed
session.
As has been noted by several people, in order to get to
Afghanistan, you have to fly over Pakistan unless you come from
the north and that is a subject of continuing deliberation with
Pakistan, and I can shed a little bit more light on that going
forward. But they have actually, over the last 20 years, we
have been able to use what we call the ``air boulevard'' to go
in over western Pakistan and that is become something that is
vital to us, as well as certain landlines of communication. We
will be working with the Pakistanis in the days and weeks ahead
to look at what that relationship is going to look like in the
future. But I can again talk a little more in the closed
session.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. General Milley, did you want to
add to that?
General Milley. Yes, I have had several conversations over
the years and also recently with Pakistanis and there is no
question in my mind that the relationship between Pakistan and
the Taliban is going to become increasingly complex. There are
a whole series of issues there that have national security
interest for the United States that are best handled in a
different session.
Senator Shaheen. Okay. Thank you. Well can you, and
Secretary Austin, can you talk about what we are doing to work
with our European counterparts who, based on conversations that
I have had with some of the civilians from our NATO allies,
there was some frustration about the communication that led to
the withdrawal and the evacuation? Are we working to rebuild
those relationships? Do you see that frustration reflected in
the military relationships that you have?
Secretary Austin. I do not, Senator, and I understand that
there will be concerns. But as I engage my counterparts, they
are very willing to work with us, and I do not want us to sound
Pollyannish on this, but they have been very, very thankful for
the fact that we helped them get their people out and we helped
them get thousands of evacuees out that had worked for them,
because of what we did.
So I think, as I look at the major players, that there is
still a strong willingness to work with us, and relationships
are things that we just have to continue to work at.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Shaheen.
Before I recognize Senator Wicker, at the conclusion of
Senator Wicker's questioning we will adjourn, as I said, the
1:00 adjournment, a little early, a couple of minutes, and then
we will promptly return at 1:30.
Senator Wicker, please.
Senator Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General McKenzie,
let me ask you, as I understand it one of our primary missions
in Afghanistan was training the Afghan armed forces. We also
equipped them with approximately $83 billion in military
equipment, we always provided them extensive support in the
form of intelligence and surveillance, air support, logistics,
including contract aircraft maintenance, and special operation
advisors.
General McKenzie, were the Afghan armed forces ever trained
to fight the Taliban without United States support of any kind?
General McKenzie. Senator, some elements of the Afghan
military could fight very well without our support, some of the
elite commando units. Obviously, we know from the example that
we saw in August that other elements were unable to do that. In
fact, as we began to withdraw our support during the withdrawal
operation we began to see the effects of that. We shift to an
over-the-horizon model for aviation maintenance. That is
difficult to do----
Senator Wicker. It really is difficult to do.
General McKenzie.----with a technologically literate
population. It is harder to do in Afghanistan. We were having
some small success with that, and actually Afghan Air Force
continued to fly strikes up until well into August. But they
were, nonetheless, on a general negative attrition.
Senator Wicker. What percentage would you term as elite?
General McKenzie. Oh, I would say less than 5 percent.
Senator Wicker. Okay, and so really, for 95 percent it was
unrealistic for us to expect them to be able to fight alone at
that point, in July and August of this year.
General McKenzie. The combination of the obvious withdrawal
of the United States, which had a profound psychological
effect--because I think in the mind of the soldier, you know,
the Taliban and the Afghan military, they have the same DNA, so
it comes down to the fighting heart of the man on the ground. I
think that the Taliban were heartened by what they saw happen
at Doha and what followed, and our eventual decision to get out
by a certain date. I think the Afghans were very weakened by
that, morally and spiritually.
Senator Wicker. Thank you. Good. Let me rush on then to try
to get another question in.
Secretary Austin, the reports in The New York Times are
that you warned the President all the way back in March that
there could be dire outcomes in which the Afghan military
folded in an aggressive advance by the Taliban, and that you
drew comparisons between that and our experience in Iraq, where
disaster unfolded and we were required to go back in. According
to the same article, you warned the President, we have seen
this movie before.
I know you do not want to tell us what advice you give to
the President. Was that your feeling, and did you make known
the comparison with Iraq, and did you feel we had seen this
movie before?
Secretary Austin. Thanks, Senator. Again, you are right. I
will keep my conversations, my recommendations to the President
confidential. But I would say that as we worked our way through
the process here we laid out, you know, all potential
consequences that could result from any course of action that
we took, and we were clear-eyed about that.
There were inputs coming----
Senator Wicker. With regard to Iraq--that is my question,
Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Austin. Well certainly, then we get back to the
specific conversation that I would have had. But it is clear
that I have a history with Iraq. It is clear that I have
learned there are lessons to be learned from Iraq, and I would
certainly----
Senator Wicker. Was it your feeling that we had seen this
movie before?
Secretary Austin. Well, there are certainly some of the
same kinds of things could transpire as we look to transition.
Senator Wicker. Okay. Speaking of things transpiring, one
was that we had to go back into Iraq. Secretary Austin, does
the Department of Defense have plans in place to redeploy
United States combat troops to Afghanistan in the event that
our intelligence estimates proved true and our Homeland
security is, in fact, threatened?
Secretary Austin. Currently, the President's decision,
Senator, as you know, is that we have left Iraq--excuse me,
Afghanistan, and so we have not been tasked to construct any
plans to go back into Afghanistan.
Senator Wicker. So there are no such plans in place.
Secretary Austin. No.
Senator Wicker. General Milley, of the conditions that were
required of the Taliban in the agreement only one was met. Is
that correct?
General Milley. That is correct. The condition was, the one
that was met was the most important one, which was do not
attack us or the coalition forces, and they did not.
Senator Wicker. President Trump made a recommendation, gave
an order that we leave on 15 January.
General Milley. Correct.
Senator Wicker. The advice came back from the military
strongly that that was not a good idea. Based on that advice,
the President rescinded that order. Is that correct?
General Milley. That is correct.
Senator Wicker. None of those conditions that President
Trump based his decision on had been met in 2021, when
President Biden made, in fact, the same decision. Is that
correct?
General Milley. Those conditions were never met. That is
correct.
Senator Wicker. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Wicker.
At this point the Committee will stand in recess until
1:30. Thank you very much.
[Recess.]
Chairman Reed. Let me the call the hearing back to order,
and I will recognize Senator Blumenthal for a second round.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your testimony earlier and your continuing
testimony now.
Secretary Austin, I would like to go back to the topic of
my first round of questions, the evacuation of Americans and
our Afghan allies, translators, guards, and security officers
who sided with us, put their lives on the line, and who now
literally have targets on their backs, along with their
families. I asked you who, at the Department of Defense, is in
charge of our efforts to evacuate them and, with all due
respect, you did not give me the name of the person at DOD
leading these efforts, but you pointed me instead to the
Department of State and interagency efforts.
I have been involved in working on this evacuation issue
and on the refugee question for some time, along with coalition
of veterans, NGOs, concerned citizens, and some government
officials, and the frustration I have encountered is that I
have been directed, repeatedly and constantly, from one agency
to another. DOD sent me to State, who then sent me to the
National Security Council, who would send me back to the
Department of Defense. It was a Kafka-esque exercise in
bureaucracy and red tape with no clear lines of authority while
lives were on the line. This private network or coalition was
doing the work that the United States Government would have
done if it had maintained a presence there, but it had none,
and that is why, at Mazar and Kabul it was doing that work.
I am concerned that despite this Committee's efforts to
call attention to the looming crisis in the evacuation, we were
unprepared. As I mentioned earlier, a number of Members of this
Committee went to the White House in the spring, asked for a
plan, a strategy, and none was forthcoming. I am concerned we
will repeat that mistake as we work to avoid a humanitarian
crisis during refugee resettlement, and that will be a huge
undertaking, with hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who
are literally escaping torture and murder coming to this
country, many of them with nothing more than the clothes they
had when they left.
We currently have tens of thousands of those individuals on
your bases, Department of Defense bases, both overseas at
Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and domestically, as you
well know, Virginia, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Texas. This is
a Department of Defense responsibility. It is a moral
imperative. These people risked their lives for us, as you know
on this panel better than any of us, and it will be shared with
the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security,
Health and Human Services, numerous other Federal agencies. We
own it. It is our responsibility.
I am a United States Senator and I continue to have
difficulty ascertaining who is in charge. I think we need an
evacuation czar, a point person on refugee resettlement, whose
mission is public, and who is known to the American people to
be in charge here.
I would like to ask you, how do we ensure that there is an
official in charge, a point person, someone to ensure that
Afghan children receive schooling, that there are language
services that they received medical care, and can you give us
an update on what the status is?
Secretary Austin. Well again, Senator, thanks for your
sustained interest and for all that you have done to continue
to help get people out. There is a process. There is a
mechanism. State has responsibility, as you know, for being the
lead to continue to evacuate American citizens and SIV
applicants out of Afghanistan. That process is being run by
Ambassador Bass as an interagency effort, and we contribute to
that with a dedicated general officer as a part of that.
In terms of the evacuees or the guests that are being
housed on our installations, Department of Defense has
responsibility for housing them and for their care and feeding.
In terms of integrating them into our society, DHS and State
really are leading that process, and I agree with you, it is
very important that we do this the right way, and it is very
important that we do this carefully but as rapidly as possible,
because we do have children that need education and all those
kinds of things.
In the meantime, DOD will remain sighted on making sure
that they receive the very best care and we provide for their
safety as well.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Senator Fischer, please.
Senator Fischer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General McKenzie, at the beginning of this hearing Chairman
Reed made a comment about the goal and mission that we are
going to be looking at now in the future is to assure that
Afghanistan never again can be used as a base for terrorists.
As we look at that goal, as we look at that mission, I think we
need to be honest with the American people on how that will be
accomplished. I do not think the American people should be
misled about capabilities that are needed to make sure that we
can conduct over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations.
President Biden has pointed out that we conduct over-the-
horizon CT operations to go after terrorists in other places in
the world, including ISIS in Syria, al Qaeda in Yemen, al-
Shabab in Somalia.
General McKenzie, in those three locations we have either a
U.S. presence or reliable partners on the ground. Is that
correct?
General McKenzie. Senator, that is correct.
Senator Fischer. In those three locations, do we have
strike assets or basing agreements in nearby countries?
General McKenzie. At the level of this briefing, yes, we
do.
Senator Fischer. General McKenzie, when the Department
developed its initial plans for an over-the-horizon approach to
counterterrorism in Afghanistan, did those plans assume that
the Afghan Security Forces would serve as our partner on the
ground?
General McKenzie. We developed plans that were neutral on
that. We developed a spectrum of options, ranging from we would
have robust help from some future government in Afghanistan to
a situation, which is what we have now, where we would have no
help from the government of Afghanistan. So we developed
options across that entire span of future possibilities.
Senator Fischer. But as we developed the options, you
developed the options and the reality is now that we did not
see this collapse coming so quickly then we do not have
partners on the ground. Is that correct?
General McKenzie. We always had a--one of the options for
CT in Afghanistan would be that we would be at a state where
there would be no diplomatic presence there and there would be
no help from the government of Afghanistan. So from the
beginning we always saw that as one of the possible futures.
Senator Fischer. That is the situation we are in right now?
General McKenzie. That is correct.
Senator Fischer. You stated that during the evacuation we
developed a pragmatic relationship with the Taliban, but you
are not saying we should consider the Taliban to be a reliable
partner, by any means, are you?
General McKenzie. I do not trust the Taliban. I do not
consider the Taliban to be a reliable partner. Any time you
deal with the Taliban you have to look at what they do and not
what they say.
Senator Fischer. General McKenzie, Yemen, Syria, and
Somalia all border an ocean or a sea and we can use carriers or
other sea-based assets to conduct CT operations. Afghanistan,
however, is a landlocked country, so we cannot use our sea-
based assets in the same way. Our nearest strike base, or our
nearest base in Qatar is about 1,600 miles away from northern
Afghanistan, so our strike assets are significantly further
from potential targets than they are in other operating
locations.
Is it fair to say that it is more difficult to hit targets
that are further away from where the strike asset is based?
General McKenzie. Senator, in general that is a factor, but
I would tell you because of our ability to refuel aircraft, to
position--for example, during the withdrawal we positioned a
carrier off the Makran coast of Pakistan, which shortened the
range considerably. So there are ways to get to that finished
solution.
Senator, if I could just add, it is not the finished part
of the problem that is the most difficult part of the problem.
It is the finding and fixing the target where we have run into
great difficulties, particularly associated with Afghanistan,
because of, as you noted, it is a landlocked location, it is a
great range from our bases. While we do have platforms that can
fly in there, it eats up a lot of time and a lot of platforms
to conduct that mission. That is why I said from the beginning,
it is hard to do, very hard to do. It is not impossible to do.
But we can talk more about it in the closed session.
Senator Fischer. Right, and it is hard because of a lack of
partners on the ground?
General McKenzie. That is a significant factor that you
look at when you look at any CT operation of this specter.
Senator Fischer. To even reach Afghanistan, our strike
assets, they have to fly over other countries. So without an
agreement from central Asian nations north of Afghanistan is it
accurate that we are reliant on the continued use of Pakistani
air space for our over-the-horizon strategy?
General McKenzie. Senator, you are correct.
Senator Fischer. That is not a sure thing for the future.
Correct?
General McKenzie. Senator, I would not predict the future.
I know they were very supportive during the last phase of our
engagement in Afghanistan. I think we are now talking to them
at various levels about how we might maintain the ability to do
that in the future, but I would not want to get out ahead of
the Department, the Secretary, and the policy people on this.
Senator Fischer. But they also have a strong relationship
with the Taliban. Would you consider that that is going to
grow?
General McKenzie. I would consider that they are going to
be very conflicted about this, as they have been for the last
20 years.
Senator Fischer. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Fischer.
Senator Kaine, please.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the witnesses.
I guess I will direct this to Secretary Austin. What is the
administration's current best estimate of the number of
Americans that are in Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. Senator, according to State there are
currently fewer than 100 American citizens who want to depart
and are ready to leave. We got out 21 American citizens today,
along with their family members, and we will continue to work
this, as you have heard us say earlier.
The numbers fluctuate daily because more people come to
light as time goes by and they see opportunities to safely
leave, and so this has been a dynamic process. But again, we
will stay focused on this.
Senator Kaine. I understand that. I am aware that you had
success in getting Americans out because I have advocated on
behalf of some of them and I have seen the results of your
effort, and I know you will continue that.
If I remember correctly, there started to be communiques to
Americans in Afghanistan that they might possibly consider
returning to the United States as early as March. Is that
correct?
Secretary Austin. I do not have knowledge of those
communiques.
Senator Kaine. I think that may be from a foreign
relations, State Department standpoint. Obviously, you cannot
bring folks home who do not want to come home, but the number
that you are currently looking, and I understand that it
changes, who want to come home is now less than 100, and I
trust that you will continue to be diligent about that.
To the question that I posed in my first round of
questions--and, General McKenzie, I would like to start with
you--all three of you are leaders but you also have on-the-
ground experience, and I know you have a deep connection to
Afghanistan and people that you fought together with and your
partners and colleagues there, as well as the Americans who
sacrificed so bravely. For the purposes of the Committee, we
really want to dig into this question about why did the
security force and government fail so quickly? Because it bears
upon future train-and-assist efforts or future humanitarian
efforts.
Beginning with you, General McKenzie, what are your own
thoughts about the speed of the collapse of both the military
and civilian government?
General McKenzie. Senator, I believe that the collapse of
the military and the government are completely linked. You
cannot consider one without looking at the other, and I believe
probably the primary accelerant to--I will take the military
side first--the primary accelerant to lowering moral and
general efficiency of the Afghan military was what they saw
coming in the heels of the Doha agreement, what they believed
was forced upon them, and so I think that had a negative
effect.
Plus as we get closer to the date that we are leaving, the
clear vision that the United States is going to leave, and we
are going to apply a system of, at best, partial remedies, from
their perspective, to continue the maintenance of not only the
main force, the conventional force on the ground, but also the
really high-priority items like their air force. As I have
noted before, we had an over-the-horizon solution to do that.
It was not a perfect solution but it was our best attempt to do
that. So I think that affected the military.
But I would tell you what I think--the deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA) of those Afghan soldiers is the same DNA the Taliban
had, and the Taliban fought pretty hard. I think it comes down
to the will to combat and fighting spirit, and I think that is
where you get the link to the government of Afghanistan. When
your president leaves suddenly in the middle of a campaign for
the capital, I think that finishes any chance at all you might
have had of making a stand there.
There were signals before then of disaffection and
fractures in the Afghan Government--you know, probably better
people than me to talk about that--but I think all those came
together and had a very powerful negative synergy towards the
end.
This is not new. We have been able to see it for years. But
you know, Senator, one point I would make is, this is not
inherently a military problem. There are larger factors here
than just the United States military and what we did or did not
do training the Afghans. So I will pause there.
Senator Kaine. To your last point, of the two points you
made, you had the best fighting force in the world. But if they
do not have confidence in their military of political
leadership it is hard for them to put it all on the line for a
leadership if they lack confidence in the leadership.
To Secretary Austin or General Milley, any additional
thoughts?
Secretary Austin. The three choices that you laid for us
was, your questions were was it because of insufficient
training, was it because the troops were demoralized, or was it
because we wanted thing for them more than they wanted it for
themselves. I would agree with General McKenzie that the Doha
agreement had a significant impact on the morale of the troops,
but I would say that is compounded by weak leadership,
corruption in the government, and the fact that the Taliban
made a concerted effort to really reach out to provincial
leaders and convince them that the Taliban was going to be in
charge so they might as well side up with them early on.
Senator Kaine. My time has expired. I yield back. Thank
you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Caine.
Senator Cotton, please.
Senator Cotton. General Milley, in the final two pages of
your written statement you lay out some detailed circumstances
of your phone calls with the Chinese counterparts on October
30, 2020, and January 8, 2021. You also say you would be happy
to make available various documents. I want to ask for three
sets of documents, if we can get them. I think the first two
should be fairly straightforward. One, could we get the list of
people who joined you on those calls, by name and by title?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Cotton. United States officials.
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Cotton. Two, could we get a list of similar calls
you have made to your military counterparts around the world
from, say, September 1, 2020, to January 20, 2021?
General Milley. Sure. Yes.
Senator Cotton. Again, I think there should not be an
issue, have any classified information.
Third, you mentioned in that written statement that shortly
after those two phone calls with General Li you circulated
readouts within the Pentagon and inside the interagency
partners you have. Could we get those readouts as well?
General Milley. Yes.
[The information referred to follows:]

GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT

Senator Cotton. Secretary Austin, could I get your
commitment that you will work with General Milley and his team
to get that to us, both as quickly as possible and without
unnecessary classification?
Secretary Austin. Yes, Senator.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Secretary Austin, on May 8th you
conducted, at the Pentagon, what is known as a rehearsal
concept drill, also called a rock drill. Is that right?
Secretary Austin. That is correct.
Senator Cotton. That is pretty important, especially for
such a significant decision as withdrawing from Afghanistan. Is
that right?
Secretary Austin. That is correct.
Senator Cotton. It has been reported that you attended,
General Milley attended, Jake Sullivan attended, Bill Burns
attended. Is that correct?
Secretary Austin. That is correct.
Senator Cotton. Did Tony Blinken attend?
Secretary Austin. His deputy attended, Senator.
Senator Cotton. His number two deputy, Wendy Sherman?
Secretary Austin. No. Yes, McKeon.
Senator Cotton. His number three deputy, Brian McKeon. Do
you know where Tony Blinken was on Saturday, May 8th?
Secretary Austin. I do not. I do not.
Senator Cotton. Do you know if he used any DOD resources to
travel between May 7th and May 10th?
Secretary Austin. I can certainly find out, but that is not
something I would----
Senator Cotton. Yes, I understand it is not right at your
fingertips, but I think we could probably get it pretty
quickly. I would like to know if Secretary Blinken used any DOD
assets, whether aircraft or air bases, or personnel, air crews
or ground crews, to travel between May 7, 2021, and May 10,
2021. Thank you for that.
Secretary Austin, who chose September 11th as the date by
which we would withdraw from Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. I am not sure that--well, certainly that
was not a military recommendation. But the military, when asked
to provide an estimate of how long it would take to retrograde
our people and equipment, that number fell in the range of
possibly up to 120 days, but certainly much shorter than that
if we were uncontested. As it turned out we were uncontested.
That date takes you to the end of August.
Senator Cotton. I am sorry, Secretary. My time is limited.
So can you tell me who it was that directed you, the Secretary
of Defense, that September 11th was the date by which you would
complete the withdrawal?
Secretary Austin. Nobody directed us that September 11th
was the date that we would complete it. I think that was an
objective that was laid out by the administration.
Senator Cotton. I believe that President announced that in
mid-April, when he announced the decision. Someone had to come
up with that date. You cannot recall who it was that
recommended September 11th?
Secretary Austin. That was not a military recommendation.
Senator Cotton. General Milley, is there any military
significance to withdrawing by September 11th?
General Milley. I do not know who came up with it, but sure
there is significance of September 11th.
Senator Cotton. General McKenzie, it has been reported by
NBC News that you told Taliban leader Baradar, on August 15th,
that if they took Kabul we would bomb them. They obviously took
Kabul on August 15th. We did not bomb them. Is the report that
you told them that correct?
General McKenzie. That report is incorrect.
Senator Cotton. It is incorrect. Thank you.
General McKenzie, why did we not conduct ground patrols
into Kabul? The French did. The British did. The Germans did.
We stepped outside the gates. We flew Chinooks out to police up
our people. Why did we not conduct ground patrols?
General McKenzie. Senator, actually, I do not believe any
of those nations conducted ground patrols into Kabul from HKIA.
I believe that the British went out to what they call the Baron
Hotel, which is a facility located about 150 meters off the
HKIA compound, and they did business there. But no one
conducted ground patrols from HKIA going out. In fact, I am
very confident of that, based on--I looked into it with my
commander on the ground, so I am quite confident when I make
that assertion.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Secretary Austin, one final
question. Obviously, this is an issue on which many of our
troops and our veterans feel very passionately, on both side of
the issue. One of those servicemembers, Marine Colonel Stuart
Scheller, posted a very critical video on social media last
month, and he was received of his command for that posting.
Media reports today indicate that he is being held in pretrial
confinement. Why is that?
Secretary Austin. I do not have any specifics of what
caused him to be held in pretrial confinement, and I would
certainly ask the Marines to provide that insight.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Cotton.
Senator King, please. Do you need a moment?
Senator King. The discussion that we have had thus far
today is a peculiar one about decisions, and the assumption
seems to be that you could make a different decision, for
example, on August 31st, and everything would have been okay
and we would have gotten more people out.
My understanding, General Milley, is that it was your view
that making that decision to go beyond August 31st--and I am
using this as an example--would have had consequences which you
and your colleagues judged would be far more damaging and
dangerous to American lives than the decision to leave on
August 31st, including being back at war with the Taliban,
subject to terrorist attacks, and subject to perhaps airplanes
being shot down by the Taliban. Am I right about this, where
the risk calculus was?
General Milley. That is correct, Senator. We said risk to
mission, risk to force, and risk to remaining American citizens
in Afghanistan was going to go to extremely high, beginning 1
September if we stayed past 31st with United States military
forces.
Senator King. You used that term, ``risk to mission, risk
to force'' as a kind of--that is a descriptive phrase. But we
are talking about potentially hundreds of American lives, are
we not?
General Milley. Well, when we talk risk to force, we are
specifically talking casualties, killed and wounded, and our
estimate, my estimate at the time--this is 25 August we are
talking about--is if we go to war with the Taliban on the 1st
of September--there were 6,000 Taliban and 56 checkpoints in
Kabul at that time--we would have had to clear Kabul, we would
have had to re-seize Bagram and the 30 miles of road between
Bagram and Kabul. That would have taken a significant amount of
force. You are looking at probably a core operation.
We probably, my guess, is that we would have had
significant amounts of killed and wounded. Exact numbers are
always imprecise when you are doing those kinds of estimates,
but it would have been significant U.S. military killed and
wounded, and the remaining American citizens would have been at
greater risk.
Senator King. You mentioned we would have had to have
retaken Kabul. Then had 6,000 troops. As I remember discussions
in this Committee when we were talking about retaking Mosul,
the generally accepted rule of thumb is that it takes 10 troops
to dislodge 1 in a city, that dislodging of troops in a city is
very difficult and takes a large number of attacking troops. Is
that correct?
General Milley. It is, but the disposition and composition
of the Taliban in Kabul at that time was not the same as ISIS
in Mosul. Mosul was a prepared defense. They were dug in. They
were ready to go, underground positions, et cetera. The Taliban
had just moved in. So it would have been not that level of
fight that you saw in Mosul, but it still would have been
significant--6,000 is 6,000--and you are in an urban area of
about 5 million people. So it would have been a significant
level of effort, and it would have resulted in significant U.S.
casualties.
Senator King. Thank you. Do you know--and I want to be
clear on this. There was a deadline in the Doha agreement of
March 10th for the beginning of negotiations. Did the
administration, the former administration, make any objections
or raise problems with the Taliban because of their failure to
meet that deadline, or indeed, to ever meet that deadline in
terms of negotiations with the Afghan Government?
General Milley. I do not have personal knowledge of that.
Zal Khalizad might be a good one, or former Secretary of State,
but I do not know personally know.
Senator King. General McKenzie, I do not want to go over
the same ground, but do you agree with General Milley that had
we gone beyond August 31st, that decision was not just, oh, we
are going to abandon Americans. It was, if we stay until
September 1st we would have to make an additional troop
commitment, and our troops would be at risk. Is that correct?
General McKenzie. Senator, that is exactly correct.
Actually, in the meeting in the tank with the JCS I was the
principal briefer who advanced that argument, and that does
reflect my position.
Senator King. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator King.
Senator Rounds, please.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In listening to your testimony today, and I have
appreciated the amount of effort that you put into being very
clear with us, it seems to me that we have left a power void in
central Asia that has already increased the threat of terrorism
and has provided significant opportunities to our adversaries.
Secretary Austin, a little while ago you indicated that--
and I believe your term was that if we would have had to have
made an earlier withdrawal, perhaps in April or May, that it
would have been very, very difficult to have had that completed
in an orderly manner, and I think that is the way that you
described it. Is that correct, sir?
Secretary Austin. That is correct, sir.
Senator Rounds. I think also, sir, you would probably agree
that the withdrawal on the August 30, August 31 deadline, was
probably not an orderly--done in an orderly manner either, was
it?
Secretary Austin. There are two issues here, Senator, if I
may. First of all, you will recall that we stated that General
Miller planned for an orderly evacuation of people and
retrograde of equipment. That plan was laid out, it was
rehearsed, and it was executed so that by early July all of the
equipment that we wanted to retrograde had been retrograded,
and most of the people were out, except for a small element
that was in around the embassy and on HKIA.
Senator Rounds. Mr. Secretary, the American people watched
with horror on TV, during the last days in August, in which our
young men and women in uniform not only died but they were in
the middle of huge throngs of individuals desperately trying to
get out. I do not believe that you would suggest that that was
being completed in an orderly manner.
Secretary Austin. No. So that is the second. The second
operation was a non-combatant evacuation, which was--I think
you heard me say early on, Senator, was--we had some
challenging times early on. We recovered from that and were
able to----
Senator Rounds. But Mr. Secretary, you would not consider
that to have been done in an orderly manner, would you?
Secretary Austin. I would say overall we endured
challenges, but again, we were able to get out an enormous
amount of people.
Senator Rounds. I do not disagree that the young men and
women who wear the uniform of this country, on that particular,
very challenging time period, did everything they could. But
clearly it was not in an orderly manner. They were in a very
disastrous, and I think we would all agree, a very deadly
situation. Would you agree, sir?
Secretary Austin. You heard me say so, Senator, that it was
a very dangerous situation that we were in, and despite that
they were able to fight through the challenges. Because of
their heroic efforts, we were able to do what we did.
Senator Rounds. Mr. Secretary, the reason why I asked this
is because I think not only American citizens saw this but I
think our allies saw it as well, and I think what they saw was,
first of all, that because of the date certain rather than a
conditions-based withdrawal, because of a decision that was
made by our President, because of that we left American
citizens behind, and we did leave Afghans behind who had served
directly with our United States forces. It appears that many of
them believe that we did not appropriately consult with them
about our activities in a timely fashion.
Finally, to look at and to see American equipment being
left there, even if it is not quite ready for use but most
certainly there in the hands of the Taliban did not help our
position with our allies, sir.
Let me just move on very quickly. General Milley, I have
got just less than a minute left on this, and I just wanted to
comment. I think your second statement in which you shared with
the American people and with us today an expression of how, in
a very unclassified way, how the nuclear chain of command
works. Part of this--and some of us have had the opportunity to
observe, in a tabletop exercise, how that actually works with
the processes working their way through what the President on
down and the questions that are asked and the responses
required, and so forth. The 2022 National Defense Authorization
Act (NDAA) has some very specific exercise requirements that
the White House and other members are required to follow
through. Do you know if either President Trump or President
Biden had the opportunity to do a tabletop exercise and
actually listen to the questions that were going to be asked of
them should there ever be the possibility of the use of nuclear
weapons?
General Milley. I do not know if either one, President
Trump or President Biden, has gone through that tabletop
exercise.
Senator Rounds. Thank you. Once again, thank you,
gentlemen, for your service to our country.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Rounds.
Senator Hirono, please.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Austin, my colleague, Senator Duckworth,
mentioned the idea of an independent commission to evaluate
what happened before, during, and after the war in Afghanistan.
So, Secretary Austin, are you open to such an effort?
Secretary Austin. Senator, I will always, as you would
expect, always cooperate with my oversight committee.
Senator Hirono. Yes, because I, for one, very much agree
that this was a 20-year war and there were four Presidents
involved, and I would like to ensure that there are some
lessons learned from a 20-year forever war.
At the same time, I feel some of the Republicans have made
a total about-face, a U-turn regarding the war. I thought that
they wanted the war to end and they were very supportive of
President Trump when he made the deal with the Taliban to get
out. So there is that, and clearly there are lessons to be
learned in terms of an evacuation, but I think the decision to
get us out of this forever war was a good one.
Secretary Austin, the President--I want to move to a
different topic--the President has touted the Afghanistan
pullout as necessary to free up time and money to deal with
near-peer competitors like Russia and China, but that stated
rationale is somewhat, I think, at odds with the
administration's budget, which fails to align funding
priorities with the lines of effort identified in the Indo-
Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
Secretary Austin, I have brought this up before when we had
a posture hearing. So you do not have to get into it now, but I
would very much appreciate the efforts and where we are in
terms of meeting the five lines of effort under the Pacific
Deterrence Initiative. Could you provide us with that?
Secretary Austin. We can, and I would just add, Senator,
that I have spent a fair amount of time with our combatant
commander since we last talked. He has laid out his plans and
his intent, and I am fully behind the effort that he wants to
undertake. We look forward to discussing that with you.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. Along those same lines, nuclear
disarmament talks with North Korea remain stalled, and I am
concerned that steps taken by the DOD, including zeroing out
funding for the Homeland Defense Radar Hawaii, HDRH, and
objecting, just last week, to congressional action to
reauthorize funds to keep that program on track put Hawaii at
risk in the near future.
What is DOD's credible alternative to HDRH Hawaii, going
forward? This is the second time that Congress has had to put
back money for that radar. So what is the alternative that the
DOD has that will protect Hawaii?
Secretary Austin. The capability that we currently have,
Hawaii is protected, and again, this is an issue that we
continue to look at. You can rest assured that Hawaii will not
be unprotected.
Senator Hirono. Well, I know that we are protected as of
today. I am looking at the future.
So a lot of us have concerns about what is going to happen
to the Afghani women and girls with the Taliban coming back. I
would be interested, Secretary Austin, to hear your perspective
about concrete steps the United States can take to influence a
future for Afghan women and girls that honors their human
rights and freedoms.
Secretary Austin. Well, I certainly share your concern,
Senator, and Taliban's track record on this is absolutely
horrible. We will have to continue to--we will have to work to
use economic levers and also international pressure to hold the
Taliban accountable for some of the things that they said they
are going to do. Again, I think this will have to be an
international effort to maintain pressure on the Taliban.
Senator Hirono. At some point I think we would like to know
specifically what kind of international efforts are bearing
fruit with regard to what the Taliban is doing with women and
girls in their country.
Regarding our relationship with Pakistan, so I think I will
submit that for the record, because I know we are trying to
keep to 5 minutes. But the relationship with Pakistan going
forward with regard to the Taliban.
Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Hirono.
Senator Ernst, please.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair. General Milley, in a
previous round we established that the withdrawal achieved no
security conditions other than an unconditional withdrawal. We
had to withdraw by a time certain, a date certain. These are
yes-or-no questions, please, General Miller. Has the military's
task to defeat terror threats from Afghanistan gotten harder?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Ernst. Does the Taliban and its other terror
partners have more ability to train and prepare in Afghanistan
now that we have left?
General Milley. More ability, yes.
Senator Ernst. Has President Biden or his policy staff
provided any--any--updated guidance or direction for countering
terror from Afghanistan?
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Ernst. Are we at a greater or lesser risk of terror
attack from Afghanistan as a result of our withdrawal?
General Milley. Too early to tell.
Senator Ernst. Too early to tell.
General Milley. Yes. I think we have got about--to
elaborate a little bit, we have probably got about 6 months
here to really sort this out and see which direction things are
going to go. It is not much time, but that is my personal
estimate. It could be out to 12, and then we are going to have
some indicators and warnings of what direction this is going to
go. But that is where I would put it.
Senator Ernst. In the previous round--and this is a
comment--but in the previous round each of you had admitted
that your best recommendation was to leave a residual force in
Afghanistan. Clearly the President disregarded that opinion,
that recommendation, that advice. I do believe that this has
left us less safe.
A number of my colleagues have mentioned over-the-horizon.
General McKenzie, you referenced the fact that we do not know
yet how effective that will be. We do not have partners on the
ground. We talked about the airspace that would have to be used
for over-the-horizon capabilities.
There is still a terrorist threat in Afghanistan. Now on
August 20th, President Biden had stated, ``What interest do we
have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone?'' First,
I did not recognize that al Qaeda was gone. General McKenzie,
is al Qaeda gone?
General McKenzie. Senator, al Qaeda still maintains a
presence in Afghanistan.
Senator Ernst. Secretary Blinken had said, on August 22nd,
that ``the threat of terrorism metastasized out of Afghanistan
a long time ago.'' General McKenzie, is there any terrorist
threat in Afghanistan now?
General McKenzie. What we see is ISIS nearly rejuvenated
with the prisoners that came out of Harwan and Pul-e-Charkhi
prison. They are gathering their strength. We have yet to see
how that is going to manifest itself. But we know for a
certainty that they do aspire to attack us in our Homeland, and
we know the same for al Qaeda. So that threat, it has
metastasized, and it is resonant in other parts of the world.
In my part of the world, though, it certainly is in
Afghanistan.
Senator Ernst. Yes, and it has been reported that the top
22 officials of the new Taliban Government are known associates
of al Qaeda, including five terrorists who were once imprisoned
at Guantanamo Bay, and 13 more who were sanctioned by the U.N.,
the United Nations, as terrorists post-9/11. I am very alarmed,
Secretary Austin, that your Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, Colin Kahl, claims there is a minimal threat. He called
the terror threat from Afghanistan ``insignificant'' on a call
with Senators less than a month ago.
He is wrong. I think all of you would admit he is wrong.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director even said
that he was wrong last week. He is in denial or he is lying. I
would hope that his testimony and comments are not indicative
of your own thoughts, and if they are different, I just truly
hope they are. Let us just leave it at that.
So if the Department of Defense cannot get their lead
policy official off the couch, which is where he told me he was
during closed testimony last week, that he was sitting on the
couch, he did not really care what General Miller's opinion
was, if that is the type of thought process that we put into
decisions that are made at the Department of Defense, with this
lead policy official, maybe he needs to go back to the couch.
I do think that there is still a threat in Afghanistan. I
think we all need to acknowledge that, recognize it. al Qaeda
is not gone. I hope we all make that very clear to the
President. We will have to have additional discussions about
over-the-horizon as things develop in the upcoming months.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Ernst.
Now let me recognize Senator Gillibrand, please.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In continuing
on my line of questions from the first round, Secretary Austin
and General Milley, are you aware of any internal audits that
are being conducted within the Department of Defense on the
execution of the war over the last 20 years?
Secretary Austin. I am not, other than the after action
review (AAR) activity that we will conduct within the
Department.
Senator Gillibrand. What is that?
Secretary Austin. After-action review.
Senator Gillibrand. What will make up that review?
Secretary Austin. We will focus on the things that have
occurred as a part of this latest operation. But I think your
initial question was is there a review of the last 20 years----
Senator Gillibrand. Correct.
Secretary Austin.----and the answer to that is no.
Senator Gillibrand. Do you think a review of broad scope
would be useful to the DOD and useful to policymakers in the
future, particularly this Committee?
Secretary Austin. I do, Senator, and I also think that, as
I mentioned earlier, that that should have an interagency
flavor as well.
Senator Gillibrand. Do you have any recommendations for an
external independent review of the war in Afghanistan. For
example, what do you think Congress' role should be and how
would such an audit be conducted? What U.S. agencies,
countries, and organizations should be included in the review
of America's longest war?
Secretary Austin. Yes, I do not have any recommendations at
this point. I can certainly take that for the record, Senator.
Senator Gillibrand. I would be grateful for that.
Secretary Austin and General Milley, this is something that
hits a little closer to home. A number of our diplomats,
intelligence officers, and servicemembers who assisted with
evacuation, including the 10th Mountain Division from Fort
Drum, New York, were subjected to acute trauma and chronic
stress, a problem we are not unfamiliar with after the last 20
years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Families at Fort Drum have told my office it felt like a
full deployment compressed into the time of a few weeks.
Further, so many of our servicemembers have lost their lives to
suicide, which has been devastating. What is DOD doing to
ensure that our combat veterans and their families are getting
adequate mental health assessment and the resources they need?
Secretary Austin. Well, thanks, Senator. I will make a
comment and I will let General Milley comment as well. I think
you asked him as well.
But you have heard me say before that, you know, my belief
is that mental health is health, period, and there should be no
stigma associated with seeking help if you are dealing with
issues. I have encouraged the entire force, all of our
leadership, to make sure that, number one, we have adequate
resources available for our troops and our families, and number
two, that they destigmatize the issue of assisting help with
mental health issues.
General Milley. Senator, as you know, I commanded the 10th
Mountain Division, as well as Secretary Austin at one point,
and that division is one of the most deployed divisions, along
with the 101st Airborne Division out of Senator Blackburn's
state. There is significant mental health capability there to
help the soldiers that were on this non-combatant evacuation,
and they will get immediate assessments upon redeployment. It
is the normal procedure. Then those that need counseling, it is
there.
The key that we have to do is emphasize a culture of non-
stigmatizing any sort of mental health issues that a soldier,
sailor, airman, or marine have, and so that they feel free they
can seek out the counseling we have available.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you. I would like to follow up on
the line of questioning that Senator Ernst started. Can you
describe for us the al Qaeda threat today--where it is located,
where you believe it will be going, what the strength is
compared to the strength over the last 20 years? Please answer
the question for ISIS, ISIS-K and other variations of ISIS
across the world.
General Milley. You are asking me, Senator?
Senator Gillibrand. Yes. General Milley first and then
Secretary Austin.
General Milley. Okay. So first, I think it would be good to
handle it in some detail in the classified session, but in an
unclassified session I would say that the al Qaeda threat,
globally, is still there. The threat in Afghanistan has an
opportunity now to potentially reconstitute, although it has
been ripped apart pretty steadily over 20 years. Al Qaeda has
displaced to other parts of the world, with their affiliates in
East Africa, for example, al-Shabab, or al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) down in Yemen, also in the Maghreb, et cetera.
So there are several affiliates worldwide, some of which
are quite capable and definitely have aspirations to attack the
United States.
With respect to ISIS, we saw ISIS core in Iraq and Iran and
all that. That was all ripped apart, but they still exist up
there, by the way. ISIS has found a new home in parts of
Afghanistan, although right now they are at war, essentially,
with the Taliban. But ISIS has affiliates as well, in other
parts of the world, because of their brutality.
So there are other regions of the world which have high
concentrations of very lethal terrorist organizations that have
aspirations to conduct operations against the United States,
and we have operations and intelligence, surveillance,
reconnaissance (ISR), et cetera, in all of those parts, to
continue to watch that. But it has moved in various parts, and
we can cover that in some detail in the classified session, if
that is okay.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
will pursue both questions in the classified setting.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand.
Senator Tillis, please.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley and General McKenzie, I ran out of time
before I could thank you for some of the work that your staff
did in August. We were working several cases. I was involved. I
remember a conversation with one of your staff, General
McKenzie, at about 3:00 in the morning, while we were trying to
shepherd someone out, and we did get them out successfully,
along with some American citizens.
But unfortunately we have a much longer list of people that
we were not successful with getting out. Between SIV holders
and family members, my office alone has over 900 people still
on a list of people who are still in Afghanistan. We
communicate with these people through WhatsApp. We were trying
to shepherd them to HKIA and then back and forth, and
ultimately operations were shut down and they were stranded and
left behind.
So what role--and, Secretary Austin, maybe I will start
with you--what role, if any--and actually, before I ask that,
on the mental health issue, we were working with a marine who
was trying to get an interpreter out, had been maintaining
contact for years. We had all the authenticating documentation.
We were not successful in that case. That marine committed
suicide about 3 weeks ago, a retired marine. So this is having
real-life consequences, not only in Afghanistan but here in the
United States.
So, Secretary Austin, what role, if any, does the DOD play
in helping us draw down this list of people that we believe we
have documentation that suggests they should somehow get
shepherded out of Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. Senator, first of all, my deepest
condolences on the loss of our marine. I am really saddened to
hear that. Thoughts and prayers to his family.
DOD continues to work as a part of the cell that you may
have heard me mentioned earlier, that is actually run, or
headed up by the State Department, and Ambassador John Bass is
running that. We are trying to pull in as much information from
every corner that we can and refine lists, and refine contact
information so that we can reach out and make sure that people
have the right credentials to be able to leave the country.
We continue to work as a part of the State effort on this
issue.
Senator Tillis. I think it would be helpful to find out
what our point of contact was. It was literally me reaching
somebody to see if they could help me or moving it up the chain
of command to where I was able to personally intervene in
several cases.
General Milley and General McKenzie, some people have said
we are glad that we have ended this war. Is the war on terror
over? General Milley?
General Milley. Absolutely not.
Senator Tillis. General McKenzie?
General McKenzie. The war on terror is not over, and the
war in Afghanistan is not over either.
Senator Tillis. Has the exit from Afghanistan made the war
more challenging for us or less challenging, with respect to
continuing to try and protect the Homeland and United States
interests abroad?
General McKenzie. Senator, it has made it more challenging.
Senator Tillis. General Milley, do you agree?
General Milley. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Tillis. A related note. A Wall Street Journal
article published on August 31st said, ``United States official
acknowledge the military has lost 90 percent of the
intelligence collection capabilities it had using drones before
the drawdown.'' Do you agree with that?
General Milley. I did not see the report. It said--say
again what it said?
Senator Tillis. It said that we have lost 90 percent of our
intelligence collection capabilities it had using drones before
the drawdown.
General Milley. I would have to go look at the actual math.
I have got my J-2 actually doing that right now, to determine
the level of ISR assets and the statistics. It is significant.
I do not know if it is 90 percent.
Senator Tillis. On the SIVs and folks that are stranded in
Afghanistan, is it fair to say that our human intelligence
network, given the current status and fact that many were left
behind, is it fair to say that that has been stressed even more
so than our drone surveillance capabilities? I mean, do we have
much in the way of human intelligence on the ground in
Afghanistan today?
General Milley. We can explain that, I think, in good
detail in a classified session----
Senator Tillis. Okay.
General Milley.----but there is still, yes.
Senator Tillis. Back to Secretary Austin, I think it is so
important for us to show that we are going to move heaven and
earth to try and get these other out of Afghanistan, because
this not only has an impact in Afghanistan, it has an impact
anywhere. SIVs are not unique to Afghanistan. People working
with us, human intelligence on the ground keeping our forces
safe, is something that standard operating procedure in a lot
of dangerous areas.
So I hope that we recognize that we owe it to the people of
Afghanistan, but we owe it to our men and women in uniform to
get this right. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Tillis.
Now let me recognize Senator Warren.
Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Milley,
our military executed a massive operation during the month of
August. As I understand it, it was larger than the Berlin
airlift. For the record, can you just tell us how many
Americans you evacuated?
General Milley. Almost 6,000. I can get you a precise
number for the record, but it was about 6,000.
Senator Warren. Let us get the right number for the record,
but that is helpful. How many people, in total, did the United
States and coalition forces evacuate?
General Milley. One hundred twenty-four thousand total.
Forty-four thousand went out on non-U.S. aircraft and the rest
came out on U.S. aircraft.
Senator Warren. Okay. An extraordinary effort, but still it
is hard to get everyone out.
General Milley. The largest airlift in history.
Senator Warren. Right. Hard to get everyone out. One
problem, of course, is that there were so many Afghan SIV
applicants in Kabul waiting to be evacuated because the Trump
administration had essentially shut the program down.
Withdrawal was a massive operation, conducted in a chaotic,
unpredictable environment, and some people have criticized you
for leaving on August 31st. But I just want to explore that for
a minute. General Milley, once the Afghan Government collapsed
in August, would you say that staying past the date of their
collapse would have exposed the force on the ground to
substantial and additional risk?
General Milley. Yes, and that is exactly what we assessed,
that if we stayed past the 31st the risk to force, U.S.
military casualties, the risk to the mission, the ability to
continue to execute the NEO, and most importantly, the risk to
the Americans citizens that are still there was going to go to,
we assess, very high levels, and we thought that that was a
level of risk that was unacceptable.
Senator Warren. Okay, and just so I am sure and everybody
has got this on the record, so if we had stayed another week or
two or three then it is likely there would have been another
attack that killed American servicemembers. Is that what you
are saying?
General Milley. I would say that that is a near certainty.
Senator Warren. All right. For years, we poured money into
the Afghan Government, and for years we trained their army, we
outfitted them with all the best American equipment, we
provided them with overwhelming air power. Even so, both the
Afghan Government and the army collapsed almost
instantaneously. So General Milley, let me ask you, given how
quickly the Afghan Government and the Afghan army collapsed, do
you think that either or both would have been able to stand on
their own with just another few months or another few years of
American assistance and training?
General Milley. I think at this point that is unknowable,
but my estimate at the time was if you kept advisors there,
kept money flowing, et cetera, that we probably could have
sustained them for a lengthy or indefinite period of time.
Whether or not you would have had a different result at the end
of the day that is a different question.
Senator Warren. You know, when I hear you say that it
reminds me of all the years that I have sat now in the Senate
Armed Services Committee and how many times the generals have
come in front of us, and when you point out every way in which
the Afghan Government was failing and Afghan army was failing,
the generals respond with, ``But we are turning the corner
now.''
General Milley. I did not say we were turning the corner,
Senator. I said we could sustain them.
Senator Warren. That we would be able to keep them, and
somehow, when we got ready to withdraw, they would be so well
sustained that they would not have collapsed instantaneously,
the way they did after 20 years of sustenance and training?
General Milley. Well, I think the end state probably would
have been the same no matter when you did it.
Senator Warren. Well, you know, I believe that leaving a
force behind would have necessitated that force staying
indefinitely.
General Milley. That is right.
Senator Warren. Many of those servicemembers would have
been exposed to unnecessary risk and harm.
General Milley. That is exactly right.
Senator Warren. We agree, and I also just want to say, this
week we will have our fifth hearing on Afghanistan in the 8
months since President Biden took office. During the Trump
years, as the Afghan Government and the Afghan Army racked up
one failure after another, the Republicans seemed far less
interested in this topic, holding one public hearing a year.
The Republicans' sudden interest in Afghanistan is plain old
politics. It is not the kind of oversight that we should have
been exercising in years past.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Warren.
Senator Sullivan, please.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just to my
colleague's statement, it is a little bit rich coming from one
of my colleagues on this committee who wants to gut the
military and its readiness. But that is a whole other issue.
I want to get back to my line of questioning from this
morning, and I will tell you again, gentlemen, I have never
seen so much anger, at least from my constituents, who
witnesses a fiasco, a humiliation, a President who is
consistently telling falsehoods to the American people and the
issues that there is no accountability.
You, gentlemen, have spent decades serving your country,
honorably in combat. I have the utmost respect for your
service, your fidelity to America. Importantly, you have
dedicated your lives to an institution that has a culture of
strict accountability and responsibility up and down the ranks.
I mentioned a few examples this morning, the collisions of the
USS McCain and Fitzgerald. Everybody up and down the ranks,
including the three-star admiral, was relieved. The recent,
very tragic, Marine Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) accident--
everybody up and down the ranks, including the commanding
general of the 1st Marine Division was relieved. If you are a
Marine or Army second lieutenant training your platoon on
patrol and one of your soldiers loses his night vision goggles
(NVGs) or his rifle, that lieutenant is going to get relieved.
But on this issue, one of the biggest national security
fiascos in a generation, no one is accountable, and the
American people are livid because they saw it. The see it. They
know it is a debacle.
General Milley, this morning you called the Afghan
retrograde a logistical success but, quote, ``a strategic
failure.'' I appreciate your honest assessment. I believe the
President of the United States is solely responsible for this.
Mr. Secretary, do you know if anyone--the National Security
Advisor, the Secretary of State, or Under Secretary for Policy
of DOD--has offered their resignation to take responsible for
this fiasco?
Secretary Austin. I do not.
Senator Sullivan. Okay.
Secretary Austin. I do not, but I do not believe they have.
Senator Sullivan. Okay. Thank you. Given the military
culture of accountability that all of you gentlemen come from--
and again, I respect that more than almost anybody--have any of
you offered your resignation to the President at any time since
his decision to withdraw? General Milley, I understand your
earlier answer to this question that senior military advisors
and officers cannot resign every time they disagree with the
President. I actually agree with that. But after the
President's decision, when the American people see such a
strategic failure, as you called it, that is undermining our
national security, they expect accountability, and there has
been none. So have any of you accepted that accountability or
responsibility?
General Milley. I am accountable for my actions, and----
Senator Sullivan. No. I am just talking about a
resignation.
General Milley. I have not submitted my letter of
resignation.
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Austin. No.
Senator Sullivan. General?
General McKenzie. I have not submitted a letter of
resignation.
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Secretary, I want to know, what will
it take for someone, anyone, in the Biden administration to
take responsibility or accountability for this national
security fiasco? Anyone.
Secretary Austin. Senator, from a DOD perspective, again,
you heard me say that we will continue to review our actions,
and we will not hesitate to be critical of ourselves. If there
is someone that should be held accountable for an action then
we will certainly do that.
Senator Sullivan. I want to switch topics here very
quickly. General Milley, do you think if the Chinese Communist
Party decided to invade Taiwan, would their military leadership
call and give you a heads-up?
General Milley. I think there would be a period of
increased tension, indicators, and warnings, and I think there
would be an exchange of various communications at all levels,
Department of State and----
Senator Sullivan. Do you really think----
General Milley.----and I think----
Senator Sullivan. Do you really think the Chinese Communist
Party, head of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), would call
and say, ``Hey, General, FYI [for your information], we are
going to get ready to invade Taiwan. I just thought I would
give you a heads-up"? Do you honestly think that?
General Milley. I know I would call him and ask him.
Senator Sullivan. No, I am asking----
General Milley. I would call him and ask him outright.
Senator Sullivan. Do you think he would give you a heads-
up----
General Milley. I think----
Senator Sullivan.----on the invasion of Taiwan?
General Milley.----I think an invasion of Taiwan would be a
fairly obvious thing to pick up on, and there would be a lot of
communications----
Senator Sullivan. No, that is not what I asked.
General Milley.----going back and forth.
Senator Sullivan. Let me ask a related question.
General Milley. Sure.
Senator Sullivan. I think the answer to that is no. I think
if the PLA called you and said, ``Hey, we are getting ready to
invade Taiwan,'' and Xi Jinping found out about it, he would be
shot. But let me ask a related question.
You said you were, quote, ``certain that President Trump
did not intend on attacking China.'' That is what you just
said.
General Milley. That is correct.
Senator Sullivan. Yet you are quoted in the Woodward book
as telling the top Chinese communist military commander, quote,
``If we are going to attack, I am going to call you ahead of
time.'' Is that true, General Milley?
General Milley. Let me tell you what I actually said.
Senator Sullivan. So that is not true. I hope that is not
true.
General Milley. Let me tell you what I actually said,
Senator. What I said, if there is going to be a war, if there
is going to be an attack, there are going to be a lot of calls
and tension ahead of time.
Senator Sullivan. But what you----
General Milley. You are going to get calls.
Senator Sullivan.----said in your testimony was that you
were----
General Milley. You are going to get calls.
Senator Sullivan.----you thought President Trump would not
attack. That was your testimony this morning.
General Milley. That is true. That is absolutely true.
Senator Sullivan. Okay. Then why would you----
General Milley. I was communicating to my Chinese
counterpart on instructions, by the way, to de-escalate the
situation, and I told him that we are not going to attack.
President Trump has no intent to attack. I told him that
repeatedly, and I told him if there was going to be an attack
there will be plenty of communications going back and forth,
your intel systems are going to pick it up. I said, ``I will
probably call you. Everybody will be calling you. We are not
going to attack you. Just settle down. It is not going to
happen.'' I did it twice, in October and January.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. You are giving a heads-up to the Chinese
Communist Party----
General Milley. I did not give him a heads-up we were going
to attack because we were not going to attack. I was telling
him we were not going to attack----
Senator Sullivan. If we are going to attack I am going to
call you ahead of time.
Chairman Reed. Senator Sullivan?
General Milley.----which was the President of the United
States' intent.
Chairman Reed. Time.
General Milley. I was being faithful to his intent,
Senator.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much.
Senator Peters, please.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Austin, in your confirmation hearing you spoke
focusing on our shared interest with Pakistan. A readout from
your August call with Pakistan's chief of army staff contained
some similar language that you expressed.
My question to you, could you please elaborate for this
Committee on what you view as our shared interest with Pakistan
today? I am particularly in how this relates with the Pakistani
Government's relationship with the Taliban, now that the
Taliban are in power in Afghanistan.
Secretary Austin. Well, thanks, Senator. I think that one
key shared interest is the prevention of a humanitarian
disaster in Afghanistan or in the region, and so I think we
will continue to share that interest. I do think there is some
intersection in terms of certain types of terrorist activity
that I think we can both remain focused on. Again, an in-depth
conversation about Pakistan probably would be better suited in
a closed hearing.
Senator Peters. Very well. I understand that there were
certain airplanes, helicopters, and ground vehicles that were
disabled as forces left and as the Afghan forces were overrun.
Right now I do not want to talk about the operability of a
Humvee or an MRAP or the pictures we saw of Taliban sitting on
grounded C-130s. What concerns me more is the potential for our
strategic adversaries to have some time and space to examine
the technology inside those vehicles, to find vulnerabilities.
Even if a system has been disabled, in some ways destroyed,
reverse engineering can still be used on those systems and can
provide information to sophisticated adversaries that may get a
hold of this. As all of you know, we harden our supply chains
to protect military technology. It is a matter of national
security.
So my question for you, Secretary Austin, is the Department
now conducting an extensive counterintelligence assessment of
equipment to get a sense of what might be reverse engineered
and how do we protect against any use of that information
against our forces?
Secretary Austin. We will continue to assess what is
exploitable, Senator. I would flag for you that all of this
equipment is not high-end equipment. Again, equipment that we
had for our use was retrograded as General Miller drew down the
retrograded equipment and drew down our forces.
I would also like to flag for you, sir, that while the
number, $84 billion, has been bounced about quite a bit, that
is the number that we invested in Afghan Security Forces over a
20-year period of time, and less than 20 percent of that was
dedicated towards Afghan equipment. Most of that money was
focused on sustainment and salaries and those types of things.
Senator Peters. General McKenzie, if you could go back in
time and change one thing about the strategy in the last 6
months of operations in Afghanistan, which could have
alleviated some of the chaos that we saw at the end, what would
it be?
General McKenzie. In the last 6 months, Senator, would of
course infer that decisions made were going to zero. I go back
to, could we have gotten more people out earlier in the
process. By that I mean U.S. citizens, and I know the embassy
put out at least a dozen notices to U.S. citizens to leave. I
know that the ambassador was very aggressive on that. But I
would have liked to maybe have seen done more there, more done
in that regard.
Additionally perhaps to try to get more of the SIV
population out. But, Senator, I think we need to recognize that
if you are asking the Afghans to fight, and, at the same time
you are bringing out the best and the brightest, that is
clearly a conflicting message that you are sending them. So I
do not say that lightly or recognize there would not be
inherent risk in taking that course of action.
Senator Peters. So there would have been risk doing those
things.
General McKenzie. There would have been, in my judgment,
yes, but that is the way that we could have been more forceful
with our citizens, although there are very strict limitations
on what you can say or do to an American citizen abroad, for
good reason. So I think, you know, you have got to trust the
good judgment of the people, of the American citizens that are
in Afghanistan.
Senator Peters. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Peters.
Senator Cramer, please.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin,
why did the Committee not get the testimony for today until
10:35 last night? Were you guys not prepared?
Secretary Austin. We were prepared, and again, I do not
know the specifics of what last-minute adjustments were being
made at what level. But we were prepared.
Senator Cramer. Well, it must not have been a level below
you then or you would be aware of it, right? So it would have
to be a level above you. In other words, did the White House
withhold your testimony? General Milley, did you have your
testimony done before 10:35 last night?
General Milley. We did, but the White House was not
withholding my testimony, no.
Senator Cramer. Who was?
General Milley. Nobody. You have to submit--when you submit
written documents, as you well know, you have to submit them to
Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Senator Cramer. Right.
General Milley. They reviewed them in the afternoon. We got
them back, I do not know, 1800, 1900, something like that, and
then we made the changes and submitted them, and yes, we were
late.
Senator Cramer. But it was not you?
General Milley. No.
Senator Cramer. It was OMB----
General Milley. There was not any intent to block.
Senator Cramer. Yes. It was somebody's strategy, is my
guess. It just might not have been yours. But it clearly was
somebody's.
General McKenzie, about a half hour ago you said, ``We know
for certain ISIS intends to attack us at home,'' or something
to that effect, right? Is that correct?
General McKenzie. That is correct.
Senator Cramer. So 20 years ago, on September 11th, when
the terrorist hijackers took over four aircraft and attacked
the Homeland, all of them came here on a visa. Correct? Now in
the last 20 years, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, they have not
acquired intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or a navy
or an air force, as far as we know. So if they are going to
carry out that intent they are going to have to get here
themselves, and that means either through a visa program or as
refugees across the southern border.
My question to all of you is, is not national security tied
directly to good immigration security, and do you feel like we
are adequately prepared to protect the Homeland from visa
holders and refugees?
General McKenzie. Senator, in the case of ISIS I think we
have done a remarkable job over the last 2 decades about
hardening the entry process and making it very difficult for
them to get their agents into the United States, and that is a
matter of record, just based on performance. The same thing
with AQ. The larger discussion about immigration I would defer
to the Secretary in the Department.
Senator Cramer. But I would submit to you that as good as
the work that has been done in the last 20 years, the last 6 or
7 months it has been pretty well degraded, I would say. Others?
Is immigration policy pretty important to national security?
Secretary Austin. It absolutely is, Senator, and again, I
would not want to--again, that is the domain of Secretary
Mayorkas, and I know that he and the interagency are continuing
to work that very hard.
Senator Cramer. All right. According to a CENTCOM press
release, General--this is a quote--"Post-strike reflections
indicate that Kabir Aidi was directly connected to the ISIS-K
leaders that coordinated the August 26th attack at the
airport.'' The way I read that the actual ISIS-K leaders who
coordinated the attack are still out there. Is that true?
General McKenzie. I would prefer to talk about it in a
private setting.
Senator Cramer. I thought you might. I look forward to that
and I yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Cramer.
Now let me recognize Senator Duckworth, please.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I just wanted to say thank you. I just
received a letter this morning in response to a letter I had
written to you and Secretary Blinken asking about the process
of certifying that somebody did work for the DOD as a
contractor, and I do want to say that the response is a good
one. I think you have made, with regards to Project Rabbit,
which I will give you a couple of minutes to talk about, but it
seems that you have reviewed over 7,800 employment records and
matched over 3,400 of those PRECOM applicants. Would you like
to talk about Operation Rabbit for just a little bit?
Secretary Austin. Well, only to say that, I mentioned
earlier, Senator, that when this question came up that this is
important to us. We think we have to do everything we can to
shorten the amount of time that it takes for somebody who has
worked with us before to be able to verify that they have
worked with us. We are going to continue to work on this, and
again, one of my major directorates is focused on this. We will
work with the Committee on this if you have further
requirements. But thanks for your support in this regard.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, and I know each one of us
probably does have folks who have contacted our office seeking
help in verifying their employment as a contractor, not just
under DOD but also with State.
I would like to shift gears a little bit and talk about
Mark Frerichs. Although military operations have ended, an
Illinoian and a veteran of the United States Navy, Mr. Mark
Frerichs is still being held hostage in Afghanistan. He was
abducted in Kabul on January 31st of last year, and while he
has been held captive too long, recent reporting in Newsweek
indicates Taliban willingness to engage on his release.
Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official, confirmed that
United States and Taliban negotiators have discussed my
constituents and said about the prospect of a deal to secure
Mr. Frerichs' freedom, quote, ``There are attempts between the
political bureau and the United States envoy which we hope will
be successful in this regards. We must continue to press for
Mr. Frerichs' swift and safe return. This must be a priority
for our Government.'' In August, a Pentagon spokesperson stated
the DOD is laser-focused on returning him home safely to his
family and where he belongs.
Secretary Austin, I know from our numerous conversations,
including just yesterday, about my constituent, that you have
been personally involved in attempting to secure his return,
both in your engagements with your counterparts in the region
and your role as a member of the Principals Committee at the
National Security Council.
Can you please update me on your discussions regarding Mr.
Frerichs with your foreign counterparts as well as your
interagency partners in our Government? I know his family is
probably watching this testimony today.
Secretary Austin. As you have indicated, Senator, I want
him back, and we are going to continue to do everything we can
to get him back. As you and I have talked in other sessions, I
have engaged the chief of the Pakistani army on multiple
occasions to solicit his help. I have engaged other senior
leadership, Qataris, for example, to use their influence to see
if they can help us there.
We will remain focused on this. I am hopeful that we could
see some daylight, some movement here in the future. I do not
have anything to offer you in terms of specific readouts from
the interagency process, and I defer to Mr. Sullivan to provide
commentary there.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and I
appreciate your commitment to getting Mr. Frerichs home.
I am, however, frustrated by how little information there
has been made available to congressional staff and others when
it comes to everyone who is trying to get allies out of
Afghanistan. General Milley, I understand from public reporting
that you have been working with some veterans groups and some
other NGOs who have been voluntarily offering their help in the
continued effort to evacuate Americans and at-risk Afghans from
Afghanistan. Can you share any details with us and the public
today about that effort?
General Milley. Yes, so what we did, Senator, is we did a
little bit of outreach to some of the groups that are probably
well-known to folks in this room, had them in for some sessions
in the Defense Department to get coordinated so we could have a
common operating picture of what SIVs, what P-1, P-2s, and what
American citizens, most importantly, are still there, try to
get the information in a single database, et cetera, from the
various groups.
In addition to that, get them linked into Ambassador Bass,
because he is the single focal point with the Department of
State, which we have done that now. We have a joint staff
general officer who is involved in that working group with
them, and he is our liaison and brings them all together in
order to get all the information, in order to develop course of
action to help bring out additional American citizens and
others.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. Will you commit to
communicating with me and all of Congress about this
partnership so we can help facilitate the connections with
these people who still remain at risk and are contacting us
through our various offices?
General Milley. I will. It is being run by the Department
of State, but I will work with the Department of State to make
sure that they get it over to you, yes.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
Let me recognize Senator Scott, please.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley, why would you, as the sitting Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talk to a reporter that is writing a
book about a prior administration? Why would that be part of
your job description?
General Milley. Well, as Senator Blackburn said earlier, I
deal with the media routinely. Two, three, four times a week I
am talking to the media, and the media, whether it is books, TV
news, reporters, we have a lot of media here, I think it is
very, very important to make sure that senior officials talk to
the media in all of its various forms in order to explain what
we are doing.
Senator Scott. But you are talking about what happened in
the past.
General Milley. Sure, past----
Senator Scott. Why would you do that? I mean, what is the
upside to the American public of you talking to--you have
sensitive information----
General Milley. Sure.
Senator Scott.----you have a full-time job, and then you go
and talk about the prior administration. I just do not get it.
It does not make any sense to me. If the media wants to ask you
about what we are doing right now, something like that, I get
it, but the prior administration, why would you do that?
General Milley. I think it is important to make sure that
the American people are transparent with what our Government
does. That is all. Nothing more complicated than that.
Senator Scott. So it has been reported you discussed
sensitive information, including private conversations you had
with the prior President with these reporters. How is that
consistent with your testimony today that you will not talk
about any conversations you have had with the President. You
will only talk about what your position is. But it has been
reported, by these reporters, that you have told them exactly
the conversations you had with the prior President. Does that
seem inconsistent?
General Milley. I am not so sure about what they are
reporting about what I said in private conversations, et
cetera. I do not share private conversations with the
President, with this President, former President, any
President, period.
Senator Scott. So what these reporters are saying is
completely untrue.
General Milley. I am not going to say whether they are--I
do not even know what they have written. I have not read their
books. But I can tell you that I do not share my personal
conversations with the President, period.
Senator Scott. Senator Sullivan was asking about this
conversation about whether you would give prior notice to the
military in Communist China that America was going to attack.
So is it your testimony you will not ever give a heads-up to
the Communist Chinese military if the President of the United
States--it does not matter who the President is that you are
reporting--is ready to attack?
General Milley. Of course I would not.
Senator Scott. I mean, you do not feel like you did that at
all?
General Milley. No. The context we were talking about,
Senator, there was a significant degree of intelligence, and I
think I put the unclassified versions in that timeline. It is
not insignificant. It is not like one report or two. It is an
entire body of intelligence that led us to believe that the
Chinese were misinterpreting our actions and misinterpreting
what was happening inside our own country, politically, and
they were assessing a situation that was leading to escalation,
possible incident, and it would have been quite dangerous.
Secretary Esper and I met, and we met with other members of
the team, and we developed an engagement plan to ensure that we
engaged at various levels. Secretary Esper had his Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) do it and he asked me to
do it, so I did that. I made a call, and the theme was to de-
escalate, to lower tensions. I believe that is a faithful and
loyal execution of my constitutional responsibilities, and I
believe that was faithfully executing the intent of the
President of the United States at the time, because I knew--I
knew, with certainty, that President Trump was not going to
attack the Chinese, just out of the blue. It was not going to
happen. If things did happen there would be periods of tension,
calls going back and forth.
Senator Scott. I have one more question. It has been
reported that you had concerns about the prior President's
fitness for office. Do you have a criteria for Presidents, and
have you reviewed the existing President, President Biden, for
his fitness for office, or do you think that way? Do you think
you have the ability to have a right to make those decisions,
and have you been doing that?
General Milley. I am not qualified to evaluate the mental
fitness or the health of the former President, present
President, or anybody else, or anybody in this room. That is
not my job. That is not what I do, and that is not what I did.
There was a lot of speculation going on, but I do not evaluate
people's health and fitness. That is not my job.
Senator Scott. Okay. How did you feel when President Biden
attacked the willingness of the Afghan military to fight? How
did that make you feel?
General Milley. How did I feel----
Senator Scott. Yeah, when he went and attacked--he said he
did not think the Afghan military had the willingness to fight.
As a military officer, how does that make you feel? I mean,
something that you put your life on the line----
General Milley. I think the Afghan military sacrificed--I
mean, there were 60,000 or 70,000 Afghans that were killed in
action over the last 20 years, defending their country, and I
personally have witnessed to units that fought, fought well,
and fought bravely, and gave their life for their country. But
I would also say, at the same time, that over the summer, in
those 11 days, the vast majority of the Afghan units put their
weapons down, and they surrendered without a fight. Kabul was
taken with a couple hundred guys on motorcycles and there was
not a shot fired.
So my question to myself is how did we miss that? What
happened? How did that happen? That is one of the things we
have got to figure out. How is it that an army of that size--
they were trained, they were manned, they were equipped, et
cetera--how is it that the factors of will and leadership and
morale just collapsed like that? We have to answer that to
ourselves. But the Afghan army fought for their country for 20
years and lost a lot of people.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Scott.
Senator Rosen, please.
Senator Rosen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank for being
here with us throughout this long day.
I just want to speak about how, as Americans, we are really
frustrated, all of us, about the way we withdrew from
Afghanistan, but we, nonetheless, understand the difficult
position that you and our men and women in uniform, on the
ground, were, the position you were in last month.
So what the American people fail to understand, however,
and what I, too, have difficulty accepting, is the idea that
the circumstances we found ourselves in were inevitable. So I
would like to ask about a few areas where perhaps we might have
taken a different approach that could have given us more time
to accomplish the mission.
General McKenzie, why was it always the responsibility of
the United States and coalition forces or contractors to
maintain Afghan aircraft and equipment, and why were the Afghan
forces either not trained or not given this responsibility over
the last 20 years?
General McKenzie. I think you begin with the basic
technological literacy of the country, which began when we
first had dealing with them, in 2001. You are talking to people
who are coming out of rule by the Taliban, in position of
Sharia law, a Stone Age approach to these things. You cannot
impose technological literacy quickly. So that is why it took a
long time, and we were still not finished with the Afghan air
force.
There is a lot of contract maintenance done for a lot of
air forces around the world. The Afghan air force is not unique
in that regard, although in this case it was particularly
telling because they were so dependent on it.
Senator Rosen. Understanding that, would it have been
helpful to keep Bagram Air Base open in order to help with any
of this going, any of the evacuation, anybody else coming
through the country, another place for our citizens, people
from other countries, or special SIV holders, any of those
folks?
General McKenzie. Ma'am, I was intimately involved in all
the decisions on Bagram, and in no way would Bagram have been
able to contribute to either the effective use of the Afghan
air force, its continued maintenance, or bringing people out.
Very briefly, I can tell you that once we went below 2,500
people in Afghanistan, we lost the ability to hold Bagram Air
Base. It was inevitable that we were going to have to come out
Bagram, because we ended up, in late June, early July, with 650
marines and soldiers in the country. It was not feasible to
hold Bagram under those circumstances.
So we were driven by the plan, which we had all had an
opportunity to work, that we were going to come out of Bagram.
There was no way we were going to be able to keep Bagram and go
to effective zero in Afghanistan. Just not possible.
Senator Rosen. Well, thinking of what we may have gained or
may have lost as we leave, we think about countering
adversaries. So again, General McKenzie, what is your
assessment of the foreign influence in Afghanistan in the wake
of our withdrawal, and what are the measures that we can take
now to prevent our adversaries from filling the vacuum created
by our departure?
General McKenzie. Senator, last week I was in Kazakhstan,
in the capital of Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, where I hosted what
we call the Central and South Asian countries (CASA) Chiefs of
Defense (CHOD) conference. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,
the Kurdish Republic, and Pakistan, we all met and we talked
about that region after the fall of Afghanistan. Generally what
they want is they want assurance, they want to continue to have
ties with the United States, because they want alternatives to
Russia and they want alternatives to China.
Unfortunately, because of their geographic location, they
are going to always have to deal with Russia and China, but I
think our partners in the region want a message that the United
States is not going to turn our back on them, even though we
left Afghanistan. We had a very productive two-day conference,
based on those themes.
Senator Rosen. Well, I could not agree more, because I
think it makes us more vulnerable if we allow anyone else to
fill that vacuum.
I would like to, in the just minute I have left, just touch
briefly on the fate of Afghan women. What we have seen
regarding the status of women in the territories where the
Taliban had retained control prior to overthrowing the Afghan
Government, we know how horrible the conditions are for women,
and so what do you see, moving forward, for the fate of Afghan
women? What can we do? What do you see as the future for
women's rights in Afghanistan?
General McKenzie. Senator, during our long engagement in
Afghanistan I think we made great strides in educational and
other opportunities for women in Afghanistan. I think those are
all now gravely at risk with the return of the Taliban. So the
levers that we have are economic and diplomatic, which are not
part of the Department of Defense. But I think that is how we
have to work the problem. I do think there is opportunity. It
will not be a long-lived opportunity, a matter of months
perhaps, where we can force the Taliban down a certain path,
based on their desire to have international financing,
international recognition, the release of sanctions and other
things that are very important to them.
I think we have got to be very hard-nosed as we negotiate
with them going forward, to ensure these gains are not lost.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really
appreciate the hearing today, and I will be submitting more
questions for the record.
Chairman Reed. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
Senator Blackburn, please.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley, I want to come back to you. We discussed
that you have had conversations with Woodward, Costa, Leonning,
Rucker, and Bender on their books. Correct?
General Milley. Not Costa.
Senator Blackburn. You did not on Costa.
General Milley. Not Costa. Woodward yes, and others.
Senator Blackburn. We will leave that as a point of
discussion. Okay. In any of these conversations did you discuss
private meetings with the President or White House officials?
General Milley. White House officials perhaps. President, I
do not think so.
Senator Blackburn. So you never discussed any of your
conversations with President Trump.
General Milley. With President Trump----
Senator Blackburn. With any of these authors.
General Milley.----no, not a prior conversation.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. Did you portray the Commander in
Chief in a negative light or make comments that were critical
of the Commander in Chief to any of these authors with which
you had conversations?
General Milley. Not my comments or my observations, no.
Senator Blackburn. You did not?
General Milley. Others that were relayed to me from others
perhaps.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. Well, I am looking forward to your
book report on this.
Would you see these conversations as an abuse of executive
privilege?
General Milley. I would not, no.
Senator Blackburn. You would not. Okay. Let me ask you
this. What is your standard for determining when to leak
private conversations with the President?
General Milley. I do not leak private conversations with
the President.
Senator Blackburn. You did not. So you had these
conversations with the authors but you do not see that as
leaking information to which they were not entitled to know?
See, this is the problem----
General Milley. No, so----
Senator Blackburn.----that we have. See, as a member of
this committee, and as someone who represents a lot of our men
and women in uniform that are there, as we have referenced
today, I have really got an issue with the fact that you will
talk to authors but then you all come in here and you say,
``Well, we cannot tell you what we told the President.'' Then I
have to drag it out of you that the written documents, which,
under Article II you are supposed to give those to us, you
cannot go hide behind somebody's skirts on this, and you do not
want to give those to us.
So you have repeatedly told this Committee that you will
not reveal your private conversations with President Biden, but
then you have leaked this information from your meetings with
President Trump. So it is important to us that you truthfully
respond to us on this.
General Milley. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Blackburn. I think what you did with making time to
talk to these authors, burnishing your image, kind of building
that bluster, but then not putting the focus on Afghanistan and
what was happening there. General Milley, that is really
disappointing to me. I know it is disappointing to people that
have served with you or under you, under your command, and it
does not serve our Nation well.
You talked a little bit earlier about the damage, and you
said ``damage'' was the right word to use when assessing what
has happened in Afghanistan, when you look at America's
credibility. So how do you look the men and women in the eye
that have served under your command? How do you look young men
in the eye that are coming to our military Academy Days and who
want to serve, and say, ``You can depend on me. I have got your
back"? Because you know what? I think a lot of these families
right now, they do not feel like you have their back. The
special ops guys I met with Friday in my office in Nashville
that are taking their time, their money, and risking their
lives to do a job that the three of you could not do--maybe we
are going to remember you three as the three that broke the
military.
I do not know, but this is causing just a lot of anger from
people who have trusted the military. They have felt like the
military was one of the most trustworthy institutions. But in
order to get a name in a book, in order to not be drawn into a
political fight, what you have managed to do is to politicize
the U.S. military to downgrade our reputation with our allies.
Nobody has resigned. Nobody has submitted their resignation. We
have got thousands of people watching this hearing today that
are looking at you all and saying, ``I cannot believe they are
sitting there and not answering the questions and are trying to
punt.''
I yield back.
Chairman Reed. Thank you.
Now let me recognize Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier today I had
the opportunity to ask some questions. At the time, because we
were short on time, I did not have the opportunity to thank all
three of you--General Milley, Secretary Austin, General
McKenzie--for your service to our country, serving in combat
overseas, multiple deployments. Your family has served as well,
all of your families, and I want to thank you personally for
that. It is a big commitment. I understand it.
Secretary Austin, since United States troops departed Kabul
on August 31st, the number of evacuation flights has been very
small. The State Department briefed on Friday that only four
charter flights have departed with U.S. support, and the
ability to leave by a land route is even less right now.
The testimony today has indicated that the mission of
facilitating evacuation for Americans and vulnerable Afghans is
ongoing. Can you explain what role the military has in ongoing
evacuation efforts behind led by the State Department?
Secretary Austin. You are correct, Senator. It is led by
the State Department, and it is an interagency effort. As
General Milley and I said earlier, we do have a senior officer
participating in that cell that is run by Ambassador Bass, and
they are reaching out to a number of different entities,
veterans groups, many of your colleagues who have information
that can be helpful in contacting people who have a desire to
get out and have the right credentials. If they do not have the
right credentials, are there things that we can do to help them
obtain those credentials if they have helped us, worked with us
in the past, or if they are an American citizens with expired
credentials.
Senator Kelly. Do you anticipate there will be transport
from third countries? Many of our Afghan allies have left and
now find themselves in a third country. Should we expect that
there will be flights out of those places as well?
Secretary Austin. I think those individuals, as they work
with our embassy personnel in those various countries to help
them, again, if they qualify as one of the people who helped us
in the past. Certainly either taking a routine commercial
flight or taking a charter flight that we can help sponsor, I
do anticipate there will be some sort of activity in the
future.
But again, I do not want to speak for the State Department.
I will tell you, Senator, that from a DOD perspective we are
going to do everything we can to help enable this effort.
Senator Kelly. Throughout this evacuation effort, my office
worked closely with groups of former Afghan pilots and women
who served, in addition to American citizens and veterans
working to assist them in leaving the country. These are men
and women who trained with us, who fought with us, and who are
at heightened risk because of it. So I am concerned that they
were not a priority in our evacuation efforts, and that
guidance on immigration options for them has been inadequate.
Due to the challenges and uncertainties of accessing
evacuation flights, many Afghan evacuees sought alternative
means of escape, flying to these third-party countries, as I
mentioned. How is the Defense Department working with State
right now to ensure that these individuals do not fall through
the cracks with regards to resettlement?
Secretary Austin. Again, I would have to defer to State in
terms of outlining what the resettlement processes are, but in
terms of direct activity from the Department of Defense, we do
not have much--we are not a big part of that effort, that
resettlement effort in third countries.
Senator Kelly. Well thank you, Mr. Secretary, and again I
want to thank all three of you for being here today, and thank
you for your service.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Kelley.
Senator Hawley, please.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Milley, I
have just got one more question for you about these many book
interviews that you did. I Alone Can Fix It is one book. Peril
is another book. Frankly We Did Win This Election: The Inside
Story of How Trump Lost is the third book. It seems like that
is a significant outlay of time.
General Milley. I do not think so. I think----
Senator Hawley. They were short interviews?
General Milley. Relatively short. I do not think it took an
excessive amount of time.
Senator Hawley. What was the time frame on these interviews
for these three different books? By the way, for folks who do
not know at home, you said you did not read the books. I do not
think most people probably do. These are DC insider tell-all
type books. But what was the time frame, did you say, that you
were doing these interviews?
General Milley. I would say it took a couple of hours
maybe.
Senator Hawley. But when? What is the time frame? When were
you sitting for them? Dates?
General Milley. I can get you the dates. I do not know.
Senator Hawley. This year?
General Milley. I do not know off the top of my head but I
will get you the dates.
Senator Hawley. 2021?
General Milley. Oh yes.
Senator Hawley. So it was this calendar year.
General Milley. I think so, yeah. Sure.
Senator Hawley. Well, I just am wondering, clearly this is
a priority for you. You did these on the record, by the way?
All these interviews are on the record with these reporters?
Did they quote you?
General Milley. I do interviews on the record, off the
record, and I do background interviews, and I do all of that
with print media, television media, books, documentaries, all
kinds of things.
Senator Hawley. Why would you do background and off-the-
record interviews--backgrounds means they cannot quote you--
background and off-the-record interviews if the goal is
transparency?
General Milley. The transparency goes to the fact to make
sure that we are explaining ourselves and make sure that these
authors have correct information.
Senator Hawley. Is that attributable to you?
General Milley. Let us take Woodward, for example. Probably
200 people interviewed and they approach my guys to say, ``Are
these facts true? This is what we heard,'' and we clarify and
mitigate any incorrect information.
Senator Hawley. Interesting. Well, it is interesting. I
mean, you are doing these interviews. You are doing them in
2021. It just makes me wonder, all of these books, were you
maybe a little distracted, maybe a little distracted about what
was going on in Afghanistan?
Here is why I am asking. General Miller testified to this
Committee that he warned about the rapid erosion of the
military situation in Afghanistan as early as March of 2021. He
further testified that he informed you about his view on this.
He also testified that he said that the collapse of the Afghan
Security Forces and the Afghan Government could come very fast
in 2021.
General Milley. Hard and fast.
Senator Hawley. He said that he informed you of this. He
also said that he informed Secretary Austin of this.
General Milley. He did.
Senator Hawley. Now at the same time, however, in June, you
were saying, and I quote you now, ``An outright takeover by the
Taliban is unlikely.'' That is at an Armed Services Committee
meeting in the House, June 23rd. In July, you said the Afghan
Security Forces had the capacity to sufficiently fight and
defend their country. You also said that they were well
equipped. On June 17th, you told the Senate Appropriations
Committee the Afghan Government had a 325,000 to 350,000 person
security force, which we now know is a drastic overestimate,
yet a few days later you lowered that to 300,000, which we
still now is a drastic overestimate.
Your generals on the ground, your commander on the ground
is saying one thing, the Taliban has a massive offensive
underway from May 1st on, but yet you told us very different
things in public. How do you reconcile those things? What am I
missing?
General Milley. Well, first of all, Scott Miller did say
``hard and fast,'' and he also meant that, at least to me and
to others, that he meant that to be in the fall--October,
November, maybe even December time frame.
Senator Hawley. I heard you say that earlier. I am curious
about that. I would have to say that was not his testimony to
this Committee.
General Milley. Well, what he said in the committee was
``hard and fast.'' He did not put a date on it, is the readouts
to me. I do not know. Did he put a date on it?
Senator Hawley. No, he did not put a date on it.
General Milley. But he did put a date on it.
Senator Hawley. That is what intrigues me.
General Milley. But he did put a date on it with me, and to
us. When pressed it was after we leave--that was point one,
which was 31 August--and probably into the October time frame,
maybe Thanksgiving. That is about more or less where many of
the intel assessments were----
Senator Hawley. He said he was a dissenter on the intel
assessment.
General Milley. He did. That is right.
Senator Hawley. He did not put any of those qualifies on
his testimony to us. So are you saying he shifted his
testimony, General Miller, that he was not----
General Milley. No. I am saying what he told me was it was
likely to be in the October time frame. The intel assessments
were centering around November, Thanksgiving, at the latest,
Christmas. Some intel assessments went into the next year.
Here is my point, Senator, is the intel assessments had two
basic things, in my view, was the scale and scope plus the
speed. All the intel assessments, all of us, got that wrong.
There is no question about it. That was a swing and a miss on
the intel assessment of 11 days in August. There is nobody that
called that.
Senator Hawley. Well, can I just--my time is about--I
appreciate that you have made these points. I do not mean to
cut you off. It is just that my time is about to expire. I just
want to say this. It seems to me that you put a high priority
on making sure that you were favorably portrayed by the DC
press corps. You spent a lot of time doing that. Fair enough if
that is your priority. But at the same time, we had a rapidly
deteriorating, frankly disastrous situation in Afghanistan,
which resulted in the death of 13 soldiers, including one from
my home state, hundreds of civilians, and hundreds of Americans
left behind. In my view, that mission cannot be called a
success in any way, shape, or form, logistical or otherwise.
General, I think you should resign. Secretary Austin, I
think you should resign. I think this mission was a
catastrophe. I think there is no other way to say it, and there
has to be accountability. I respectfully submit it should begin
with you. Thank you.
Chairman Reed. Senator, your time has expired.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Reed. Senator Tuberville.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley, you have spoken today a lot about civilian
control of the military. I appreciate the statements made about
that today. On June 10th, though, I asked formal questions for
the record about Bagram Airfield, and I pointed out that having
a major air base within 500 miles of Iranian and Chinese
borders would be a strategically, very strategically and
valuable. I asked you about the feasibility of retaining Bagram
Airfield as a United States base. I am still waiting for a
reply. I hope you do see today ignoring questions that might
come up from civilian oversight sometimes backfires on you a
little bit. You apologized for being late with your statement
today, the hearing. But you have just got to understand the
pattern here. I heard Senator Blackburn say about the book. You
have got to see how demissive it looks to Congress that you
have had time to interview and do all these interviews but
questions are not answered. So I am just troubled by some of
those things.
Also, on August 18th you said, quote, ``There is nothing
that I or anyone else saw that indicated the collapse of the
army and this government in 11 days,'' end quote. I find it
unbelievable, with your staff of 3,200 people and a budget of
$419 million taxpayer dollars that we did not see the
obviously. But I do think you saw it, because July 11, 2019,
you said, quote, ``I think pulling out prematurely would be a
strategic mistake,'' end quote. You also said that here today.
Do you agree?
General Milley. I 100 percent agree.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you.
General Milley. May I comment?
Senator Tuberville. Yes. Go ahead.
General Milley. On your first two points. On the intel
piece, I stay with what I said. Nobody called it, 11 days in
August. There was nobody who did that. I brought the intel
reports, and when we go into classified session I am happy to
go over all of them, on the first thing. Then the Bagram thing,
I did put a very lengthy response in my written statement. I do
not know if you had an opportunity to read it yet. I would
encourage you to read it. It is also something that General
McKenzie put in his. I can assure that we looked at that whole
Bagram issue very, very carefully.
Senator Tuberville. Here is what I am struggling with,
General McKenzie. In 1945, we left Japan. They are one of our
biggest allies today and we are still there. Germany is the
same way. Korea, the same way. We had 2,500 troops. The war
stopped in 2014, and we started Operation Resolute Support, and
we are having all these people--we have got to get out here.
Folks, we are going to pay for what we just did. I mean, I have
got young kids. You all got kids and grandkids, and we are
going to be back in there fighting.
What are your thoughts about that, General McKenzie? I know
we are not talking about the President. You know, what do you
think about the future of what we have got to do in
Afghanistan?
General McKenzie. So we have very few levers in Afghanistan
right now, because we have completely pulled out.
Senator Tuberville. Will we be back?
General McKenzie. I think we are always going to reserve
the right to go in, to go after ISIS and al Qaeda targets as
they present themselves. We have been very clear on that. That
is not going to be easy, and we will talk a little bit more
about that in the closed session. It will not be easy to do
that. It will be possible to do that.
As for larger engagements, with the Taliban or whatever
government follows them, I mean, that is going to be hard road,
from where I sit, and I see a very small slice of that. That is
really a question for diplomats and others to talk about how
our future relationship with the government as a whole will be.
But I think, my judgment will be they are going to regress
significantly in every sphere of activity in Afghanistan over
the next few years with the Taliban in charge.
Senator Tuberville. We can afford to survive with our
military. We have got that kind of money. It just burns me up
that we are eventually going to have to go back there. We are
going to have problems here. I think we should have looked at
it, and I know President Biden wanted to get out. He told
people. President Trump wanted to get out. I disagreed with it.
I mean, we gave up the best base in that area, and it is just
amazing to me that we are going to have to go back, and
hopefully we do not lose its challenge. What are your thoughts
about it, as we end it up here, Secretary Austin?
Secretary Austin. I do not think it is preordained that we
are going to have to go back, Senator. I would tell you that
what you have heard us say is that we recognize that
transnational terrorists will migrate towards ungoverned
spaces. We also are committed to not allowing al Qaeda to
regenerate and be able to export terror from Afghanistan to the
United States of America. We will remain laser-focused on that
going forward, and we will do everything within our power to
make sure that that does not happen.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Could I ask you one
question? Are you against dishonorable discharges to the
military for not taking a vaccine? You are the leader of the
DOD.
Secretary Austin. I am the leader, and again, we have a
nonjudicial--excuse me, a Uniform Code of Military Justice
(UCMJ) that really addresses all of the issues in the military,
and gives our leadership what they need to be able to enforce
standards.
Taking the vaccine is a requirement, and again, I will just
leave it at that.
Chairman Reed. Thank you very much, Senator Tuberville.
Gentlemen, thank you very much. This has been a long day, and
we still have a closed session in SVC-217. There is a vote
ongoing now, so I would suggest we reconvene in SVC-217 at
3:45. We will give an opportunity for a brief respite, a very
brief respite.
With that I will adjourn the open session.
[Whereupon, at 3:24 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

Questions Submitted by Senator Joe Manchin III
decisions at the time
1. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, We have all heard the
President commit multiple times to withdraw our armed forces from
Afghanistan. I've supported that move for years, and like him, I am
also tired of seeing American blood spilt to prop up a government that
clearly was never going to be able to survive without us. After the
weeks of briefings I've received from this committee, the State
Department, and the Department of Defense (DOD), it appears to me that
each decision made as the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated, was
primarily to minimize risk to American life. At the end of the day it
comes down to this, do you believe that if we had left any U.S. forces
in Afghanistan, or committed even more personnel, that it would have
put those troops in harm's way?
Secretary Austin. I agree with the President that ending the
military mission was the best way to reduce the risk to U.S. forces.
The longer we remained beyond May 1, 2021, the date set in the U.S.-
Taliban Agreement, the greater the risk to both force and mission.

2. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, while I've always supported
the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I do have a problem with the
disorganized start of our evacuation efforts. I know other Members have
touched on this, but can you explain to me and more importantly my
constituents why the airport in Kabul was a better location for
evacuation that Bagram Airbase?
Secretary Austin. The Department of Defense, along with coalition
forces, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), evacuated 124,000
Americans, Afghans, and others from Hamid Karzai International Airport
(HKIA) in just 17 days. Once the President made the decision to end our
military mission in Afghanistan, there was no requirement to maintain
Bagram, and it was transitioned to the Afghan National Defense and
Security Forces (ANDSF). The military's task, after the retrograde was
complete, was to defend the American diplomatic presence in Kabul.
Executing the evacuation operation from the Kabul area was the most
logical choice, as the vast majority of those evacuated were located
within Kabul - and the distance and logistics associated with
evacuating personnel from Bagram would have required a commitment of
thousands of additional U.S. military personnel, and would have
required evacuees to travel through unsecured terrain.
lost assets
3. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, I would like to put a finer
point on my earlier Over the last few weeks I have heard from a large
amount of my constituents about their disappointment and concern for
the estimated billions of dollars' worth of armored vehicles, aircraft,
defense systems, weapons, and stock piles of ammunition lost to the
Taliban Government through the Afghan National Security Forces we
supplied. More importantly, I would hope that we know the capabilities
of the equipment we supplied to the Afghan Security Forces that is now
in the hands of the Taliban, and how that may leave our own forces
vulnerable when those capabilities are shared with the Chinese and
Russians. While our full technological capability wasn't included in
this equipment, things like armor thickness and vehicle design still
pose a risk once the Chinese have these in their hands. In your
opinion, do you believe these assets that the Afghans lost pose a
threat to our force?
Secretary Austin. Over the course of the retrograde operation, the
Department of Defense removed tens of thousands of tons of equipment
from Afghanistan. The equipment that remained was equipment that had
been transitioned to the ANDSF. Many of the U.S. strikes that were
conducted in support of the ANDSF during the spring and summer of 2021
were strikes against Taliban seized equipment. The majority of Afghan
Air Force aircraft were either flown out of Afghanistan prior to the
Taliban takeover, or were demilitarized by United States forces in
August 2021. During the evacuation, United States forces disabled the
other Afghan and United States equipment that remained at HKIA. The
Department of Defense is currently conducting a review of the military
materiel that remained in Afghanistan at the time of the Taliban
takeover, and what is projected to have been expended in combat or
fallen into disrepair. The majority of this equipment consists of
primarily low-grade technology and equipment that will have a shortened
life span without access to DOD-provided maintenance and parts.

4. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, would it be possible for your
office to supply us with an assessment confirming that those lost
assets aren't a threat? In a classified annex if necessary.
Secretary Austin. The equipment that the United States provided to
the Afghan security forces generally consisted of low-technology-level
equipment. While some of the equipment did have capabilities that
required enhanced end-use monitoring, such as night vision devices and
laser-guided bomb computer controls--these capabilities are below the
levels used by United States forces and countries with more advanced
military technology, like China and Russia.
combatting terrorists
5. Senator Manchin. General Milley, Haqqani is the new interior
minister and deputy leader of the Taliban. He is also just one example
of many former identified terrorists that are now influencing the
future of the Taliban and the country. Do you suspect we will change
our approach to eliminating individuals in Afghanistan, like Haqqani,
now that the landscape of political power has changed in Afghanistan?
General Milley. [Deleted.]

6. Senator Manchin. General McKenzie, by not targeting Haqqani, and
other terrorists in Afghanistan, from a commander's perspective, how
does that impact our future efforts against terrorists? Specifically,
how do we ensure the Taliban do not harbor terrorist organizations, as
they have in the past, and what consequences face them if we discover
they are?
General McKenzie. We have some limited capability with our OTH CT
platform to monitor terrorist organizations and Taliban/Haqqani
interactions with these organizations. We have the ability to strike
should that decision be made, but application of the other elements of
national power (Diplomatic, Information, Economic) would be more
effective than strictly the military application. An absence of CT
pressure almost certainly will allow some terrorists to operate in
Afghanistan with near impunity, enhancing their ability to threaten the
United States Homeland and interests abroad over time. This is why we
are working to build a CT architecture that allows us to disrupt
threats in Afghanistan from over the horizon. Speaking specifically
about the Haqqani Network, Haqqani leaders have historically enabled al
Qaeda leaders and members in Afghanistan, making the country an even
more permissive environment for potential training, plans, and
operations. The Haqqani Network's seamless integration into what the
Taliban have announced as an interim ``caretaker'' government has the
potential to challenge United States efforts to compel the Taliban to
deny al Qaeda safe haven. Nevertheless, we continue to convey to the
Taliban that they will be held accountable for their CT commitments and
for ensuring Afghanistan does not once again serve as a base for
international terrorism.

7. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, now that airstrike authority
rests with you, do you believe counterterrorism strikes will be able to
rise up through the chain of command fast enough to ensure we don't
miss a threat?
Secretary Austin. Yes. We have processes in place to move critical
information in a timely manner, and to provide pre-approval for strikes
that adhere to specific requirements.
taliban control
8. Senator Manchin. General McKenzie, the Taliban stated that they
would allow woman to participate in their government, but have not.
They would protect the press, but have continuously arrested and
assaulted them. And they have continually demonstrated that they cannot
control the rank and file of their forces. What does the future of
Afghanistan, under a Taliban controlled government, in the near and
distant future look like to you?
General McKenzie. To speculate on Afghanistan's future under
Taliban rule is outside my purview as a Combatant Commander. Going
forward I think it will be important to look at what the Taliban do
versus what they say to assess what the future will bring. However,
much of the progress we saw over the last twenty years may be at risk
of being reversed.

9. Senator Manchin. General McKenzie, please explain the rationale
for using Hamid Karzai International Airport as the base of
evacuations, and more specifically the thought process behind relying
on the Taliban for any amount of security for United States forces?
General McKenzie. We did not rely on the Taliban for security. We
took a measured and pragmatic approach with respect to the overall
security mission for the noncombatant evacuation operation, relying on
existing Coalition forces, Afghan Special Forces, and an additional
5,000 United States forces we deployed to bolster the base and inner
security of HKIA. The United States and the Taliban had a mutual
interest in the final withdrawal of United States forces and we
leveraged that interest towards executing the mission in a manner least
risky to evacuees and our forces.

10. Senator Manchin. General McKenzie, following the suicide
bombing claimed by ISIS-K, have you seen any evidence that the Taliban
checkpoints made it more difficult for that bomber, or do you believe
Taliban forces had foreknowledge and allowed them through to minimize
risk to themselves?
General McKenzie. We have no intelligence indicating that the
Taliban had foreknowledge of the bomber or his whereabouts. United
States forces shared threat reporting with the Taliban to increase
external force protection. Beginning August 16, the Taliban were
conducting broader security efforts, to include limited crowd and
traffic control, sporadic searches, and security meetings with U.S.
Forces at HKIA. At these meetings, we told the Taliban to push the
crowds back from Abbey Gate, which they did, including on August 26.
Due to the large volumes of crowds, it was difficult for the Taliban to
search everyone. Following the August 26 attack, it was evident that
the Taliban took a significantly more active role in crowd control and
security operations through the aggressive searching of vehicles at
checkpoints leading to the airport, stopping vehicular traffic along
critical avenues of approach to HKIA, and searching individuals
approaching the gates.

11. Senator Manchin. General McKenzie, what agreements have been
made between the United States directly with the Taliban or indirectly,
through other countries, to evacuate the remaining American citizens
and Special immigrant Visa holders?
General McKenzie. I would defer to the Department of State to
provide the answer to this question as this would be a matter under
their cognizance. During the evacuation process leading up to August
31, we coordinated with the Taliban on security matters to facilitate
the evacuation operations at HKIA. However, since the completion of
that specific mission, I have not engaged the Taliban in any
discussions regarding further evacuations.
geopolitical shift
12. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, as you know well foreign
policy is a critical tool needed to provide stability, promote freedom,
strengthen democracy, and to protect human rights. These are some of
the principle components of our American values and ones that I feel we
need to reflect upon now that we are out of Afghanistan. In the days
following the President's announcement to withdrawal troops from
Afghanistan, both India and Pakistan joined the United States in
calling for a political settlement in Afghanistan. However, no
settlement was established and the Taliban took control. What
discussions are being made between Pakistan, India, and the United
States for changes to the Taliban's current government?
Secretary Austin. The large majority of the international community
has certain expectations of a Taliban-led government before they will
consider it legitimate or eligible for support. These expectations
include making good on commitments not to allow Afghanistan to be used
as a safe haven for external attacks, ensuring the freedom of travel,
allowing unhindered humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of the
Afghan people, having a more inclusive government, and upholding the
basic rights of the Afghan people, including women, girls, and
minorities. The United States Government has held bilateral discussions
with India, Pakistan, and other countries in the region about our
concerns with respect to the Taliban.

13. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, what leverage do we have
going forward to influence the Taliban Government to adhere to woman's
rights, allow children to attend schools of their choosing, and to
participate in their future economic development?
Secretary Austin. The United States Government will continue to
urge the Taliban to respect the rights and freedoms of all Afghans,
especially women and girls. In engagements with the Taliban, senior
United States officials have emphasized the importance of the
meaningful participation of women and girls in all aspects of Afghan
society. The United States Government will work alongside our allies
and partners to send a clear and unified message to the Taliban that
respect for women and girls is necessary if the Taliban wants
acceptance from the international community.

14. Senator Manchin. Secretary Austin, what do you assess China's
and Russia's foreign policy in the near and long term in Afghanistan
will be and why?
Secretary Austin. The People's Republic of China (PRC) has closely
monitored the situation in Afghanistan over the years. The primary
objective of the PRC's foreign policy towards Afghanistan is likely to
promote stability on China's borders. Russia's strategy in Afghanistan
is likely tied to its long-term interests in Central Asia. Russia has
kept its embassy in Kabul open, which it has been leveraging to engage
with Taliban leaders, and has held multilateral talks on Afghanistan.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it is not in a rush to recognize the
Taliban as the new Afghan government and will wait to observe the
Taliban's actions before making a decision.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Jacky Rosen
protecting those who escaped
15. Senator Rosen. Secretary Austin, even those who did
successfully flee Afghanistan are not necessarily out of danger. Some
in the Las Vegas Afghan community have told my office that there have
been instances of unaccompanied women and children being harassed by
other Afghans where they are being housed on military bases--both
abroad and here in the United States--and that there should be more of
a security presence by military police. Is there an adequate security
posture at these bases, are you aware of any such reports, and how do
you plan to rectify this?
Secretary Austin. The Department of Defense has been proud to
support Operation Allies Welcome, hosting tens of thousands of
evacuated Afghans on seven military installations across the country.
We work closely with the Departments of State, Homeland Security,
Health and Human Services, and Justice to provide our guests an
appropriate level of support. The Department of Homeland Security and
the Department of Justice have deployed law enforcement officers to
lead Physical Security Presence Teams to respond to public safety
matters that require immediate response. These teams are intended to
enhance security and safety by providing visible and proactive patrols,
integration into community leaders' councils, and education on law
enforcement practices in U.S. communities. Of note, several
installations established Women's Engagement Teams to address the
unique needs of Afghan women and children. DOD installation commanders
have the authority to maintain safety and security for the overall base
population at these installations, including service members and their
families.
counterterrorism strategy
16. Senator Rosen. Secretary Austin and General McKenzie, what is
the plan for an enduring counterterrorism strategy that will be able to
address and counter the influence of violent extremist organizations in
Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. The Department remains committed to preventing
Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist safe haven. The United States has
significant operational and intelligence capability, and we will deploy
our capabilities in service of that goal. Our counterterrorism
objective in Afghanistan is to disrupt terrorist organizations'
external operations against the United States Homeland, Americans
abroad, and our allies and partners. Our plan is multi-faceted, and the
Department can provide additional information at the classified level.
General McKenzie. We have taken an integrated approach to this
mission, leveraging our existing human intelligence (HUMINT) networks,
coalition partnerships, technical collect, regional engagements, and
intelligence. The over-the-horizon counterterrorism (OTH-CT) platform
is led by a one-star general officer and is forward located in the
USCENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR) to enable a regional focus with
emphasis on Afghanistan. We will continually examine our methods to
improve our ability to accomplish this mission.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator James Inhofe
sustainability of 2,500 troop level
17. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, General Milley, General
McKenzie, ahead of President Biden's announcement to withdraw all
United States forces from Afghanistan, did you ask for an assessment of
the sustainability of retaining 82,500 troops in Afghanistan, including
under the condition that the Taliban recommenced attacking United
States and coalition troops, from your experienced combat commander on
the ground, General Miller, and if so, what was it?
Secretary Austin. I had numerous opportunities to consult with
General Miller, General McKenzie, and General Milley ahead of the
President's announcement. This includes my visit to Kabul in March
2021, where I was able to discuss key issues with General Miller on the
ground. During the review process, Chairman Milley, General McKenzie,
and I had several opportunities to share our views with the President,
and I can assure you that they were given serious consideration. My
assessment, informed by my consultations with my commanders, was that
staying in Afghanistan with 2,500 military forces would have resulted
in a resumed fight with the Taliban, forcing us to reevaluate whether
that force level was commensurate with the mission and the need for
increased force protection requirements.
General Milley. [Deleted.]
General McKenzie. It was my formal commander's estimate that
approximately 2,500 U.S. forces and other enablers could defend
themselves and perform their RESOLUTE SUPPORT mission--to include
providing select enablers to support the United States Embassy in
Kabul--in the event the Taliban resumed hostilities against us. GEN
Miller's assessment aligned with my own. He and I communicated
continuously during this entire process.

18. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, both General Milley and
General McKenzie testified that in their personal view, we should have
kept approximately 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Did you share that
view?
Secretary Austin. President Biden stated that continued United
States military involvement in Afghanistan would be unlikely to produce
outcomes any different from what we have seen in past years, but would
come with renewed risk to United States forces. The President's
decision to withdraw came after a rigorous interagency review of our
options in Afghanistan. I can confirm that the Department of Defense
was afforded every opportunity to express views and discuss
recommendations on the matter. The President was thoughtful and
deliberate in considering a range of views before he made his decision
to withdraw United States forces from Afghanistan. I supported his
decision.
willingness of afghans to fight
19. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, please provide the official
United States Government estimate of Afghan National Defense Security
Forces, United States military forces, and coalition military forces
that died as a result of combat operations in Afghanistan between
September 29, 2014 and April 15, 2021.
General McKenzie.
Estimates of ANDSF KIA, 2011-2021:
2011: (Est.) 1,800 ANDSF KIA
2012: (Est.) 2,900 ANDSF KIA
2013: (Est.) 2,800 ANDSF KIA
2014: 3,422 ANDSF KIA
2015: 6,508 ANDSF KIA
2016: 8,146 ANDSF KIA
2017: 7,567 ANDSF KIA
2018: 10,691 ANDSF KIA
2019: 9,414 ANDSF KIA
2020: 8,929 ANDSF KIA
01JAN21 to 23MAY21: 3,810 ANDSF KIA

U.S. military casualties: 70 United States military force deaths as
a result of combat operations in Afghanistan between 29 September 2014
and 15 April 2021.
Coalition military force casualties:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. UK Other Total UK+Other
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001................................................ 12 0 0 12 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2002................................................ 49 3 18 70 21
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003................................................ 48 0 10 58 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2004................................................ 52 1 7 60 8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2005................................................ 99 1 31 1 31 32
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2006................................................ 98 39 54 191 93
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007................................................ 117 42 73 232 115
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2008................................................ 155 51 89 295 140
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2009................................................ 317 108 96 521 204
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2010................................................ 498 103 109 710 212
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2011................................................ 415 46 102 563 148
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2012................................................ 310 44 48 402 92
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2013................................................ 128 9 25 162 34
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014................................................ 55 6 14 75 20
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015................................................ 22 2 2 26 4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016................................................ 13 0 2 15 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2017................................................ 15 0 2 17 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018................................................ 14 0 5 19 5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2019................................................ 24 0 2 26 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020................................................ 11 0 0 11 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021................................................ 13 0 0 13 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total........................................... 2465 455 689 3,609 1,144
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

control of kabul
20. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, as the decision-maker on
turning down the offer of Taliban leader Mullah Baradar on 15 August to
have the United States retain security for Kabul during the
noncombatant evacuation operation intended to take place from 15 August
to 31 August, did you consider that accepting such an offer would
potentially allow hundreds more American citizens and thousands more
Afghan partners to be airlifted to safety?
General McKenzie. I did consider the possibility, but it was not
supported by the facts. To the contrary, securing Kabul would have
required the commitment of a reinforced combat division (beyond the
forces deployed for the NEO) and would have required urban clearance
operations that would have almost certainly resulted in renewed
hostilities with the Taliban--jeopardizing rather than aiding the NEO.
It was then and remains my assessment that Baradar knew we lacked the
combat power to secure the city and was disingenuously confronting me
with a false dilemma--one of us must secure it--in the hope that I
would ask him to secure Kabul. I refused to take the bait, reiterated
that my mission was to secure and conduct the NEO, and proposed that
the Taliban could instead withdraw all its forces from Kabul and allow
GIRoA forces to secure the city. He refused to engage this option but
pledged that the Taliban would not interfere with the NEO or target
United States or Coalition Forces. We further established the means of
coordinating our activities around HKIA. These arrangements allowed us
to optimize the number of Americans and Afghan partners airlifted to
safety.

21. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, if control of Kabul by an
entity other than the Taliban would significantly improve the security
of the noncombatant evacuation operation, do you believe it would be
worth exploring whether the offer of such an agreement was genuine or
not?
General McKenzie. The only way to test the sincerity of the offer
would have been to deploy the additional reinforced combat division
required to secure Kabul and either clear the Taliban from the city or
tolerate their presence inside our perimeter. Either option entailed
significant risk to both forces and mission and would have likely
jeopardized the NEO.

22. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, please provide a complete
list, with dates, locations, and discussion summaries, of any meeting
that you or any other United States Central Command (CENTCOM) official
had with Taliban or Haqqani leaders since March 2019.
General McKenzie. I met with Taliban representatives in Doha on 15
August 2021 with the primary purpose of warning them that the United
States would respond forcibly to any effort on their part to interfere
with the NEO. They pledged not to do so. I further proposed that they
withdraw their forces from the city and allow the ANDSF to secure it
until the Taliban and GIRoA agreed upon a transition plan, but
President Ghani fled and GIRoA effectively collapsed the same day as
this meeting. Subsequent to this meeting, I had no further contact with
any Taliban representatives. During the NEO, RADM Vasely and MG Donahue
had several meetings with Taliban security officials to discuss Taliban
contributions to our security efforts around HKIA. All of their
discussions were tactically focused and very transactional.

23. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, did you or any other CENTCOM
official meet with Sirajuddin Haqqani? If so, please provide the date
and a summary of discussion for each of those engagements.
General McKenzie. No.
drawdown decision point in june
24. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, General Milley, General
McKenzie, the Committee understands that in mid- to late-June, as the
security situation in Afghanistan was rapidly deteriorating and dozens
of districts were falling to the Taliban at an accelerating rate, many
without any fight by Afghan security forces, but before Bagram Air Base
was closed, that there was a pause and interagency discussion to
consider whether to take the near-irreversible step of closing Bagram
Air Base and another location. Was there an interagency discussion on
the merits of halting the drawdown given that basic assumptions about
the security environment were being undermined by the events on the
ground, specifically the capability and reliability of the Afghan
National Defense Security Forces, and if so, was the commander on the
ground, General Miller, asked for his assessment?
Secretary Austin. I can assure you that General Miller conveyed his
assessments on the deteriorating security environment and the pressure
on the ANDSF to me through the chain of command throughout the drawdown
process. In turn, I conveyed those assessments to interagency
counterparts during our discussions on the withdrawal. In the course of
these discussions, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
USCENTCOM commander, and I provided a range of options to the President
related to the drawdown, all of which were given serious consideration.
General Milley. [Deleted.]
General McKenzie. Formal interagency discussions on this topic
occurred as part of USCENTCOM's Tabletop Exercise on 29 June 2021.
General Miller's assessment informed this discussion as well as
internal DOD discussions on the topic. General Miller's assessment was
that Bagram was not a suitable location for any potential NEO based on
its location, and I concurred with that assessment. It is also worth
noting that at the time of this discussion and decision, events on the
ground had not yet undermined the assessment that GIRoA would be able
to hold Kabul.
noncombatant evacuation operation assumption
25. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, the noncombatant evacuation
operation as originally planned assumed that Afghan security forces
would help secure the Kabul airport, but had a plan in case that
assumption proved untrue. On what day did you realize that the
assumption that the Afghan security forces would help secure the
airport was incorrect?
General McKenzie. On 29JUN21, I directed my staff to produce a NEO
branch plan to account for the degraded security situation in
Afghanistan and to prepare Temporary Safe Havens for evacuees. On
9JUL21, I requested 96-hour prepare-to-deploy orders (PTDO) for NEO
forces. By 11AUG21, it was evident that Kabul was at risk, and I
requested the deployment of a Brigade from the 82D ABN DIV, and other
elements of our own alert preplanned force package including the 24th
MEU, Special Purpose MAGTF, and Joint Task Force-Crisis Response to
HKIA. Immediately, and over the next days, these forces flowed swiftly
into theater even as the ANDSF disintegrated. Working with Afghan
partners composed of elite commando units, which did not fall apart,
those forces bolstered the security at the airfield at HKIA.
over-the-horizon counterterrorism
26. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, what is your estimate, in
terms of percentage, of the amount of intelligence lost in Afghanistan
in each of the following categories: a) signals intelligence, b) human
intelligence, and c) airborne intelligence, surveillance,
reconnaissance collection?
General McKenzie. USCENTCOM has experienced degradation in
collection capabilities in Afghanistan commensurate with the reduced
force posture following the retrograde. Additional details--pertaining
to each specified collection category--are available above the
Unclassified level.

27. Senator Inhofe. General McKenzie, how many times in the last 20
years, has Pakistan closed, threatened to close, or otherwise limited
the Air or Ground Lines of Communication into or out of Afghanistan?
General McKenzie. USCENTCOM is tracking two instances of PAK LOC
closures.
1. GLOC Closure: a. November 2011 to July 2012. In November 2011,
Pakistan shut down the GLOC due to an incident at the AFG/PAK border
involving a United States attack helicopter killing approximately 26
Pakistani soldiers. In July 2012, Secretary Clinton apologized to
Pakistan on behalf of the United States regarding the November 2011
incident. This opened the door to re-establishing GLOC operations.
After negotiating a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) and Terms of
Reference, movement began on the GLOC in Fall 2012.
2. ALOC Closures: a. 26 February 2019 to 02 March 2019. This
closure was due to India/Pakistan firing incidents connected to the 14
February 2019 Pulwama attack and the subsequent 26 February 2019
Balakot airstrike. Pakistan quickly established a different air route
for United States assets, and the impact only lasted a day or two as
Pakistan provided alternative waypoints thru the ALOC. According to
ODR-P, commercial airspace disruptions continued through May 2019.
b. Several times due to internal exercises, Pakistan has
established alternate waypoints for United States aircraft to utilize
through the ALOC. There were no significant impacts from these very
short disruptions.

28. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, General Milley, General
McKenzie, the errant strike on 29 August that killed 10 civilians,
seven of which were children, was described as ``over-the-horizon''
even though it was conducted within a few miles of over 5,000 American
and allied troops. In your opinion, does this example indicate that
over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations, in addition to being
``much more difficult'' as General Milley put it, will be both riskier
and less effective?
Secretary Austin. The strike on August 29, 2021 was a self-defense
strike, taken against what was believed to be an imminent threat to
U.S. forces and civilians. It was a tragic mistake, and the Department
has conducted multiple, independent reviews to look at the policies and
procedures that led to it. Our over the horizon strike procedures are
detailed and deliberate, with multiple methods used over time, to
inform targeting and to minimize the risk of civilian casualties.
General Milley. [Deleted.]
General McKenzie. The strike on 29 August was conducted in a crisis
environment under self-defense rules of engagement. This involved a
different methodology for target development than will be applied for
over-the-horizon CT (OTH-CT). This important difference makes the
regrettable outcome of the 29 August strike an imperfect predictor of
the success of OTH-CT. There is no doubt OTH-CT is difficult; however,
it is not impossible.

29. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, General Milley, General
McKenzie, what are the conditions regarding the resurgence and
reconstitution of al Qaeda and ISIS-K or other terrorist organizations
in Afghanistan with international ambitions and capabilities, that
would, in your opinion, require you to alert the President that we have
a real and growing terrorism problem that requires a revised course of
action including a potential revision to your over-the-horizon posture
and strategy?
Secretary Austin. The Department remains committed to preventing
Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist safe haven. We will use the full
range of our capabilities in service of that goal. Our counter
terrorism focus in Afghanistan is to disrupt terrorist organizations'
external operations against the United States Homeland, Americans
abroad, or our allies and partners. Our over-the-horizon strategy is
designed to take emerging threats into account.
General Milley. I would notify POTUS to reassess our OTH-CT posture
if we observe AQ and ISIS-K establishing training camps, receiving
increased financial support, increasing the number of foreign fighters
traveling to Afghanistan, or indications that the groups are using safe
havens within Afghanistan to plot external operations unimpeded by
Taliban.
General McKenzie. There are several conditions we believe would
require alerting the President of the need to adjust the OTH posture or
strategy, including:
ISIS-K eclipses previous highwater mark by establishing a
dedicated external operations (EXOPs) element with plans to target the
United States Homeland.
ILegacy al Qaeda members return to Afghanistan and
leverage the safe haven to direct and oversee EXOPs by globally-
dispersed affiliates.
IIf our intelligence collection posture proves
insufficient to provide timely indications and warnings.
IIf strike capability is limited or outpaced by the
growth of the violent extremist organization (VEO) threat.
IIf the Taliban's relationship with VEOs changes.
rapid deterioration of afghan security forces
30. Secretary Austin, General Milley, General McKenzie, you
testified that the Doha agreement was demoralizing for the Afghan
security forces. In your assessment, was the announcement by President
Biden on 14 April more or less demoralizing than the Doha agreement?
Secretary Austin. Our assessment was that the most significant blow
to the morale of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces was
the signing of the United States-Taliban Agreement in February 2020.
General Milley. There was not one single action that demoralized
security forces; however, several incidents led to a decrease in morale
of the Afghan security forces. The sequence of United States policy
announcements with regard to the military retrograde, compounded by
rapid Taliban advances during the same period, almost certainly caused
a steady decline of morale across the Afghan security forces and the
Afghan people at large. In late August 2021, Afghan military leadership
stated that the previous United States Administration's signing of the
Doha Agreement ``doomed us,'' and that the current United States
Administration's announcement to continue an accelerated withdrawal
``exacerbated the situation.'' Senior Ghani Administration officials
also described the Doha Agreement as ``legitimizing'' the Taliban and
warned that the September 2021 withdrawal deadline involved a high
level of risk. The change of U.S. administrations in late 2020,
followed by a six-month delayed announcement that the U.S. retrograde
continue as planned increased the ANDSFs' already degraded morale. The
continuation of the retrograde over the summer of 2021, concurrent with
rapid Taliban battlefields gains, created ``an enormous sense of
betrayal'' and fear in Afghanistan, according to public reports from
senior Afghan military officials.
General McKenzie. I believe the February 2020 Doha Agreement was
the predominant reason for the eventual collapse of GIRoA. It is not
possible to overstate the pernicious and devastating effect this
agreement had on the morale of the ANDSF, particularly aggravated by
our negotiation strategy, which did not subsequently apply or enforce
conditions on the Taliban. Subsequent announcements regarding
reductions of U.S. force levels contributed further to the sense of
demoralization.
china
31. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, General Milley, how has
Chinese leadership interpreted the United States withdrawal from
Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. I can't speak to the views of Chinese leadership,
but I believe that generally speaking, the People's Republic of China's
leadership knows that the Department of Defense has been, and will
continue to increasingly be, deeply engaged in the Indo-Pacific region.
General Milley. Beijing probably judges that our withdrawal from
Afghanistan will enable the United States to focus on competing with
China and in Beijing's view, constrain China's rise as a global power.
Beijing is concerned over the increased risk of terrorism and
instability in Afghanistan resulting from our absence, especially
emanating from Afghanistan's shared border with the PRC. However,
Beijing probably also sees an opportunity to amplify messaging that
United States power is waning. As part of its messaging campaign,
Chinese government officials and state media have used our withdrawal
from Afghanistan to question our reliability as a security partner in
the region, and particularly whether the United States will come to the
defense of Taiwan.
interagency deliberations
32. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Austin, General Milley, General
McKenzie, in the timeframe from November 1, 2020 through August 31,
2021, what were the dates and specific topics of interagency meetings
convened by the National Security Council addressing the issue of
Afghanistan that any of the three of you, the Deputy Secretary of
Defense, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, or the Vice Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff participated in?
Secretary Austin. I can only speak to meetings convened by the
National Security Council (NSC) staff during this administration. The
NSC staff regularly convened Deputy and Principal-level meetings to
discuss Afghanistan during the policy review leading up to the
President's decision in April 2021. These meetings continued over the
course of the withdrawal. Between the President's announcement in April
2021 and the beginning of the evacuation in August 2021, the NSC staff
convened dozens of Deputy- or Principal-level meetings on Afghanistan,
focused on the security situation, the drawdown, Embassy security, the
Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, and humanitarian assistance
scenario planning. During the evacuation operation, the NSC led daily
meetings.
General Milley. [Deleted.]
General McKenzie. During this time period, I participated in five
meetings convened by the NSC to discuss Afghanistan: 3, 4, 11, and 20
February 2021 and 8 July 2021, I defer to the NSC to disclose contents
and topics based on the classification of the meetings.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Roger F. Wicker
drone strike on august 29, 2021
33. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin and General Milley, an
American Predator drone strike in Kabul on August 29, 2021, killed ten
innocent Afghan civilians with no ties to terrorist groups. Reportedly,
this strike was at least partly based on intelligence asserting that a
white Toyota Corolla, Afghanistan's most common car type, would be
involved in an attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA). The
commander of U.S. Central Command said, ``I am fully responsible for
the strike and tragic outcome.'' What are the lessons learned?
Secretary Austin and General Milley. The strike on August 29, 2021
was a self-defense strike, taken against what was believed to be an
imminent threat to U.S. forces and civilians. It was a tragic mistake,
and the Department has conducted multiple, independent reviews on the
incident--and a Department of Defense Inspector General review is still
ongoing. Reviews to date point to a combination of factors, including a
breakdown of communication and confirmation bias, leading to the tragic
mistake.
over the horizon operations
34. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, when conducting over the
horizon operations in Afghanistan, what will the Department of Defense
or the interagency do to combat enemy disinformation after a completed
strike? How much more difficult will it be to counter such
disinformation?
Secretary Austin. The Department uses its Public Affairs
capabilities to provide the most timely and accurate information
possible about DOD operations. Effective employment of our information-
related capabilities in Afghanistan can be achieved without physical
presence.
signaling a risk averse posture to u.s. military casualties
35. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, Special Forces personnel for
Canada, France, and Germany operated outside of the perimeter of Hamid
Karzai International Airport (HKIA) to secure the safe passage of their
respective nations' citizens. Did the U.S. decision to stay within the
confines of HKIA signal that we were unwilling to risk taking any
casualties? Did the decision not to extend our presence in Kabul send
such a signal? Do you believe it is harmful to U.S. interests to signal
that we are unwilling to risk casualties?
Secretary Austin. While we did not discuss these operations at the
time, U.S. forces undertook outside-the-wire missions, including the
helicopter airlift of 169 Americans from a facility outside the airport
to HKIA during the evacuation. It is my firm belief that executing a
noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) in hostile territory signals to
the world the U.S. willingness to take the necessary risks to
accomplish the mission at hand.
close air support
36. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, the most recent Afghan
Ambassador to the United States called me on August 13, 2021, to urge
for the continuation of close air support (CAS) operations. When did
the Department of Defense halt close air support operation in support
of our Afghan military allies?
Secretary Austin. Throughout the course of the drawdown, U.S.
forces continued to conduct air strikes in support of the Afghan
National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) fighting the Taliban. Once
the drawdown was complete, DOD strike assets were operating from over
the horizon, reducing our capacity to provide close air support to
ANDSF units. The Department of Defense had the necessary authorities to
conduct such strikes through August 31, and we used those authorities
where and when it was feasible to defend our ANDSF partners. As United
States forces withdrew, Afghan forces, specifically the Afghan Air
Force (AAF), assumed roles previously performed by United States
forces. The AAF remained operational until the fall of the Government
of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

37. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, why did the Department of
Defense halt close air support operation in support of our Afghan
military allies?
Secretary Austin. From the President's decision in April until the
collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF),
United States forces continued to conduct airstrikes in defense of
ANDSF units threatened by Taliban attacks. As DOD executed the drawdown
and the shift to our Embassy security-focused posture, DOD transitioned
to an over-the-horizon posture. Working within these constraints, DOD
continued support to the ANDSF as the Taliban pressed their offensive
against the Afghan Government.
treatment of afghan refugees
38. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, group of 18 Afghan Christians
were relocated on a military flight from HKIA to Ramstein Air Base
during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. After arriving, this group
reported threats of violence from other Afghan nationals on the basis
of their religion. At my request, the State Department relayed these
concerns and a Department of Defense official visited them in-person,
only to find these threats credible and the situation urgent. They have
been moved to a safe location; however, it confirms that some unvetted
evacuees present a real danger to those around them. There are many
other vulnerable evacuees experiencing these same threats on the basis
of their gender or status as a religious minority. Most evacuees do not
have the ability to flag their concerns for elected officials in
Washington.
What is the Department of Defense doing to ensure vulnerable
populations, such as religious minorities, are not subject to violence
and harassment from other Afghan evacuees and how is the Department of
Defense proactively working to identify evacuees that present a danger?
Secretary Austin. The Department is committed to the safe and
successful resettlement of evacuees, and to promptly and fully
responding to any alleged threat or security risk to them. DOD has
worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security, which is
serving as the Lead Federal Agency (LFA) for this operation, and our
other interagency partners to provide appropriate public safety,
security, and law enforcement at each DOD installation where evacuees
are temporarily housed. This effort includes Federal, State, local, and
DOD law enforcement and security forces as well as, in the case of
overseas installations, host nation law enforcement. Together, these
teams provide visible, proactive patrols, integration into the
community leaders' councils, and the provision of education on law
enforcement activities in U.S. communities. Additionally, resources and
expertise from across the Federal Government and from non-governmental
organizations and volunteer organizations have been marshaled to
provide critical cultural, gender, and religious advisors, with due
focus on and sensitivity to those likely to be most vulnerable. DOD is
committed to supporting DHS, in their role as the Lead Federal Agency,
in the thorough security vetting and complete processing of every
evacuee, which includes the collection of biographic and biometric
information.
Senator Dan Sullivan
variables impacting over-the-horizon (oth) counterterrorism (ct)
missions
39. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, will the threat of Taliban, al Qaeda, or ISIS-K violence
against US citizens or legal permanent residents in Afghanistan deter
the United States from conducting OTH CT strikes in Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. The Department remains committed to preventing
Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist safe haven, and we will harness
our significant capabilities in service of that goal. Our
counterterrorism objective in Afghanistan is to disrupt terrorist
organizations' external operations against the U.S. Homeland, Americans
abroad, and our allies and partners. We always have the ability to take
action, including kinetic action, to disrupt terrorist threats to our
people and our interests.
General Milley. General Milley defers to Secretary Austin, as this
is a matter of Administration policy.
General McKenzie. No.

40. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, will CENTCOM require additional personnel or equipment to
execute the OTH CT mission in Afghanistan?
Secretary Austin. We continuously evaluate requirements to balance
forces across the Department's missions, and make adjustments when
required.
General Milley. General Milley defers to Secretary Austin, as this
is a matter of Administration policy.
General McKenzie. USCENTCOM will require operations and
intelligence personnel at our OTH-CT HQ as well as ISR resources, but
the numbers will be substantially less than previous missions in
Afghanistan. We are in constant dialogue with the Secretary of Defense
about our requirements.

41. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, if CENTCOM requires additional personnel or equipment to
execute the OTH CT mission in Afghanistan, when will they arrive in the
AOR?
Secretary Austin. The projected timeline of any potential movement
of forces will be based upon the resource and the availability of the
asset, when compared with other global requirements.
General Milley. General Milley defers to Secretary Austin, as this
is a matter of Administration policy.
General McKenzie. The resources we requested and that the SecDef
approved are in the AOR now. We will continually assess if additional
resources are needed and request them if that is the case.

42. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, if CENTCOM requires additional personnel or equipment to
execute the OTH CT mission in Afghanistan, will any of the personnel or
assets come from the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM)
area of responsibility (AOR)?
Secretary Austin. We continuously evaluate requirements to balance
forces across the Department's missions, and make adjustments when
required. Any decision on re-allocation of forces from one AOR to
another will be based on a thorough review of the priority of the
mission, assets available, and informed by the needs of the Combatant
Commanders. We have significant capability in both the CENTCOM and
INDOPACOM AORs.
General Milley. General Milley defers to Secretary Austin, as this
is a matter of Administration policy.
General McKenzie. As part of any request for forces (RFF) process,
the Joint Staff considers all possible sourcing options when they make
recommendations to the Secretary of Defense.

43. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, can the United States conduct OTH CT operations in
Afghanistan if none of the countries that share a border with
Afghanistan grant overflights rights?
Secretary Austin. The U.S. Government has discussions ongoing with
countries in the region, regarding a range of issues, to include
overflight. Our discussions have been promising.
General Milley. General Milley defers to Secretary Austin, as this
is a matter of Administration policy.
General McKenzie. Even with current Access, Basing, and Overflight
(ABO) conditions, OTH-CT is a difficult endeavor. Although further
degradation of ABO would increase risk to the OTH-CT mission, the
United States still maintains a variety of lethal and nonlethal
capabilities to disrupt and degrade terrorist organizations in
Afghanistan. The United States always retains the right to defend U.S.
forces or persons.
afghan national defense and security forces (andsf) assessments
44. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, you testified that the Doha Agreement significantly impacted
ANDSF morale and that ANDSF suffered from poor leadership and
organization. Can you explain how your assessments of ANDSF
effectiveness, leadership, and organization changed from February 29,
2020 to August 31, 2021?
Secretary Austin. Afghan political leadership became increasingly
fractured after the signing of the United States-Taliban Agreement on
February 29, 2020, and the signing of the agreement was a significant
blow to the morale of the ANDSF. Political infighting among Afghan
Government leaders, and frequent changes within the leadership ranks,
significantly eroded effectiveness of the ANDSF over the course of
2021, as they assumed increased responsibilities.
General Milley. When the Doha Agreement was signed, the ANDSF
possessed sufficient equipment and manpower that if employed correctly,
could have allowed them to hold out against Taliban offenses for 12-24
months.
From February 2020 to August 2021, the ANDSF began to assume a
defensive posture, providing the Taliban freedom of movement to attack
static positions causing morale to degrade. On 12 May 2020, former
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced the ANDSF would return to an
offensive posture after several Taliban attacks, but little impact was
witnessed. The ANDSF was heavily reliant on coalition air support to
conduct large scale ground operations. The decrease in coalition air
support forced an increase in AAF operations further overstretching the
force. With the ANDSF located at remote locations across the country,
providing logistical and combat support became increasingly difficult
for the AAF to sustain operations. The withdrawal of contract logistics
support that maintained the majority of Afghan aircraft further
compounded the AAFs ability to sustain a high OPTEMPO.
By early 2021, we were assessing that ANDSF was having difficulty
controlling Provincial Capitals, and we observed them ceding large
swaths of rural territory, and witnessed high attrition rates. By
spring 2021, the Taliban adopted a battlefield strategy of cutting
highways and lines of communications to prevent ANDSF from resupplying
or providing reinforcements to nearby bases. A lack of aircraft,
leadership, and corruption further degraded morale. By summer 2021, the
Taliban was negotiating surrenders with local elders and ANDSF
personnel handing the Taliban swaths of territory. Furthermore, ANDSF's
most capable units including ANASOC were sent from Kabul to fight in
other provinces; we assessed that overstretched those units and left
Kabul vulnerable.
By August 2021, ANDSF was suffering from a lack of leadership,
morale issues, corruption, ANDSF's most elite forces deployed out of
Kabul, and failure to adopt a comprehensive defense plan led to the
fall of Kabul. The details described is how our assessment changed over
time.
General McKenzie. It was consistently my assessment that the ANDSF
would collapse without U.S. assistance. It is impossible to overstate
the pernicious and debilitating effects the 29 February 2020 agreement
had on ANDSF morale. Morale continued to decline with every subsequent
announcement of U.S. force reduction. However, I believed the ANDSF,
without U.S. support following our withdrawal, would endure through the
2021-2022 winter fighting season.
taliban attacks on u.s. and coalition forces
45. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General McKenzie, did the
Taliban or forces under Taliban direction attack US or Coalition Forces
at any point between February 29, 2020 and August 31, 2021?
Secretary Austin. The Taliban did not target United States or
coalition forces since signing the United States-Taliban Agreement
through the completion of the withdrawal. However, it was my assessment
that if we remained beyond August 31, 2021, the Taliban would likely
begin targeting United States or coalition forces again.
General Milley. To my knowledge, the Taliban never deliberately
attacked U.S. or Coalition ground forces after the signing of the Doha
Agreement. There were isolated instances of Taliban rocket and mortar
fire targeting ANDSF bases where U.S. Forces were present. On occasion
there were reports of Taliban fighters that returned fire at United
States combat aircraft providing close air support to ANDSF.
General McKenzie. Between 29 February 2020 and 31 August 2021,
there were seven attacks against locations where U.S. or Coalition
forces were present. Five of these were indirect fire (IDF) events and
two were suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED)
attacks. Two of the IDF and both SVBIED attacks resulted in ANDSF
casualties, but none of the attacks in this period resulted in United
States or Coalition force casualties. The Taliban or forces under
Taliban direction may have conducted these attacks; however, the
attribution for the attacks has not been confirmed and the ANDSF were
the likely targets.

46. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, if the Taliban or forces under Taliban direction did attack
United States or Coalition Forces at any point between February 29,
2020 and August 31, 2021, did this violate the Doha Agreement between
the United States and the Taliban?
Secretary Austin. My view is that if a Taliban attack had wittingly
targeted United States or coalition forces, that would have been a
violation of the United States-Taliban Agreement.
General Milley. To my knowledge, the Taliban never deliberately
attacked United States or Coalition ground forces after the signing of
the Doha Agreement. There were isolated instances of Taliban rocket and
mortar fire targeting ANDSF bases where U.S. Forces were present. On
occasion there were reports of Taliban fighters that returned fire at
United States combat aircraft providing close air support to ANDSF.
The Taliban failed to fully honor any other commitment from the
agreement, including their pledge to not allow terrorists to use the
soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States. They
also failed to engage in substantive negotiations to end the conflict
and failed to reduce violence overall. Moreover, Taliban actions,
including its brutal military campaign and targeted assassinations,
completely undermined the spirit of the agreement, which sought a
peaceful settlement to the conflict, not a military takeover.
General McKenzie. An attack on U.S. forces between 29 February 2020
and 31 August 2021 confirmed to have been conducted by the Taliban or
forces under its direction could be understood as going against one of
the Taliban's commitments under the Doha Agreement. However,
determinations concerning whether any particular engagement or
engagements were inconsistent with the Doha Agreement were policy
matters, to be informed by USCENTCOM's military assessments, but not
military decisions for USCENTCOM to render.
tripwires to declare noncombatant evacuation operation (neo)
47. Senator Wicker. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General
Milley, and General McKenzie, to your knowledge, what were the
tripwires for the State Department to declare a NEO in Afghanistan
between January 20, 2021 and August 31, 2021?
Secretary Austin. I would defer to the Department of State on U.S.
Embassy Kabul's tripwires.
General Milley. Senator, I will provide this answer in a classified
response.
General McKenzie. The State Department's Embassy Kabul Emergency
Action Plan contained several ``Risk Indicators,'' including 17 Kabul-
specific indicators, which served as the basis for considering actions
to take. These helped inform State Department decisions regarding
whether to draw down the Embassy's presence and evacuate non-
combatants. The 17 Kabul-specific indicators were included in a number
of DOD and interagency briefs and discussions, and the Embassy
specifically made them REL FVEY NATO at USCENTCOM's request to
facilitate NEO planning with our allies and partners.

48. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, to your knowledge, were any tripwires for the State
Department to declare a NEO in Afghanistan modified or changed with the
completion of the US military retrograde from Afghanistan in July 2021?
Secretary Austin. I would defer to the Department of State on U.S.
Embassy Kabul's tripwires.
General Milley. The NEO plan was continually reviewed and updated
by the State Department, DOD, CENTCOM, and the embassy in Kabul as the
situation developed throughout the summer.
General McKenzie. The Risk Indicators were drafted prior to the
military retrograde and were not modified or changed after its
completion in July.

49. Senator Wicker. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, to your knowledge, were the tripwires for the State
Department to declare a NEO in Afghanistan reviewed at the April 28,
2021 Afghanistan Retrograde Rehearsal, the May 8, 2021 senior official
ROC drill, the June 11, 2021 working level interagency table top
exercise on NEO, or the August 6, 2021 senior official interagency Non-
Combatant Evacuation table top exercise?
Secretary Austin. I would defer to the Department of State on U.S.
Embassy Kabul's tripwires.
General Milley. General Milley defers to the Department of State on
this matter.
General McKenzie. The 17 Kabul-specific risk indicators in the
Embassy Kabul Emergency Action Plan to help facilitate assessment and
decision making factored into planning beginning in late July - early
August.
calls with people's liberation army (pla) counterpart
50. Senator Wicker. General Milley, when can you provide the Senate
Armed Service Committee transcripts of your October 30, 2020 and
January 8, 2021 calls with PLA counterparts and lists of United States
officials present for the calls?
General Milley. Transcripts are not produced for phone calls I
execute with my counterparts.. I am willing to share a classified
readout and list of individuals present during the calls, which I have
already transmitted to individual members of the committee.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Rick Scott
covid-19
51. Senator Scott. Secretary Austin, will the Department require a
dishonorable discharge in all cases wherein a service member refuses to
take the COVID-19 vaccine?
Secretary Austin. No. On August 24, 2021, after careful
consultation with medical experts and military leadership, I issued
direction to the Secretaries of the Military Departments, requiring
that all members of the Armed Forces under DOD authority on active duty
or in the Ready Reserve, including the National Guard, be fully
vaccinated against COVID-19. The Military Departments have committed to
extensive counseling with individual Service members who have concerns
about a vaccine, in advance of taking any adverse actions for failing
to obey a lawful order to take a vaccine. For Service members who
refuse vaccination orders without a lawful exemption, Commanders have a
wide range of disciplinary tools available. Such tools range from
counseling to courts-martial, with many intermediate possibilities,
including removal from a position, non-judicial punishment, and
administrative separation.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Marsha Blackburn
relationship with the taliban
52. Senator Blackburn. General McKenzie, what was the nature of
your negotiations with the Taliban from the time you took command in
Afghanistan until Kabul's fall?
General McKenzie. I have never negotiated with the Taliban. I did
not communicate with the Taliban until Kabul was in the process of
falling. I met with Taliban representatives in Doha on 15 August 2021
with the primary purpose of warning them that the United States would
respond forcibly to any effort on their part to interfere with the NEO.
They pledged not to do so. I further proposed that they withdraw their
forces from the city and allow the ANDSF to secure it until the Taliban
and GIRoA agreed upon a transition plan, but President Ghani fled and
GIRoA effectively collapsed the same day as this meeting. Subsequent to
this meeting, I had no further contact with any Taliban
representatives.

53. Senator Blackburn. General McKenzie, in your August meetings
with the Taliban in Doha, did their officials ever offer to allow U.S.
troops to control Kabul throughout our withdraw, and if so, did you
consult with any other administration official prior to making these
agreements?
General McKenzie. The Taliban observed that ``someone'' would have
to secure Kabul and inquired whether the United States intended to do
so. I did not consider this a sincere ``offer.'' Securing Kabul would
have required the additional deployment of a reinforced combat
division, which would have had to deliberately clear the city before
securing its outer perimeter--activities that would have provoked overt
hostilities with the Taliban and jeopardized the NEO. In the presence
of the President's Special Representative, Ambassador Khalilzad, I
informed the Taliban that United States forces would not undertake the
security of a city that the Taliban had already infiltrated, and I
reaffirmed the specific purpose of the meeting: to warn the Taliban of
the severe consequences of interfering with our NEO. The Taliban
pledged that they had no intention of doing so and subsequently abided
by this commitment. I reported this conversation to my chain of
command.

54. Senator Blackburn. General McKenzie, at any point in August did
you attempt to negotiate for a wider perimeter around Hamid Karzai
International Airport (HKIA) that U.S. troops would control while
evacuation operations were taking place?
General McKenzie. Given the forces we had on the ground on 15 AUG,
it would not have been possible to secure more perimeter outside of
HKIA without a sizeable increase in forces. The perimeter was adequate
for our force protection requirements.

55. Senator Blackburn. General McKenzie, do you assess that the
ISIS-K terrorists getting past the Taliban checkpoints, when Afghans
with legitimate paperwork provided by the Department of State were
being turned away, to be a violation of Taliban leaders' security
guarantee?
General McKenzie. No. United States forces at HKIA had coordination
meetings with the Taliban several times daily, and the security
environment was changing almost hourly. Commanders on the ground dealt
immediately with any divergence or perceived divergence from security
coordination at HKIA. The Taliban was largely receptive to our
requirements for external security support.

56. Senator Blackburn. General McKenzie, if the Taliban did not
adhere to the majority of the conditions prescribed in the Doha
agreement - then why did President Biden?
General McKenzie. I cannot speculate as to how the President came
to his decisions. We had robust discussions on every aspect of our
withdrawal, and in the end, he decided to proceed. I cannot discuss the
actual content of our discussions.

57. Senator Blackburn. General McKenzie, do you assess that the
Taliban have the capability to prevent al Qaeda from conducting attacks
from within Afghanistan? Do you have the intent to do so?
General McKenzie. The Taliban are capable of limiting al-Qaida's
activities in Afghanistan in the near to mid-term, including preventing
the group from conducting external attacks. I do not have any insight
into the Taliban's intent. However, as Afghanistan stabilizes, the
Taliban leadership's intent to prevent al-Qaida from conducting
external attacks and willingness to monitor and suppress al-Qaida
activity may diminish.
cost estimates
58. Senator Blackburn. Secretary Austin, please provide a cost
assessment of the equipment that was left by DOD in Afghanistan; please
provide figures on both United States-owned and -operated equipment
left or destroyed in place, and equipment provided to the ANDSF by the
United States.
Secretary Austin. The value of equipment that the Department of
Defense provided to the Afghan security forces since 2005 is
approximately $18 billion. Much of this equipment was destroyed in
combat or has been degraded. Over the course of the retrograde, the
Department of Defense removed tens of thousands of tons of equipment
out of Afghanistan. Remaining equipment was transitioned to the ANDSF,
for their use to defend their own country, consistent with
congressional intent. Prior to the United States departure from
Afghanistan, there were over 100 United States vehicles, more than 70
Afghan aircraft, and other equipment destroyed or demilitarized at
Hamid Karzai International Airport.
communications with the press
59. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, in testimony you confirmed
that you did speak with Bob Woodward for his book ``Peril''. Did you
speak with Robert Costa?
General Milley. I did speak with Mr. Woodward, but not Mr. Costa. I
engage with the media routinely as part of my role as Chairman. I
believe it is vital for senior officials to talk to the media in all of
its various forms to explain the Department's activities. We are
beholden to the people of this Nation and a free and open press is
critical to the function of the democracy we are sworn to support and
defend.

60. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, have you ever had on or off
the record conversations with authors in which government resources
were used (i.e. at the Pentagon, via a DOD email account, or on a work
phone)?
General Milley. I frequently conduct background, on-the-record and
off-the record interviews with various media in coordination with my
public affairs office. We disclose details of military decision making
and our operations to the American people within the bounds of
operational security. I believe the American people have the right to
know these details. My media engagements are consistent with the
previous practice of this office and that of other senior government
officials. All my public affairs activities comply with applicable laws
and statutory regulations.

61. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, in your time as Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, how many times have you briefed the press at
a routine press call?
General Milley. Routine press engagements include scheduled press
briefings at the Pentagon, travel with designated media, on the record,
off the record and background interviews. These are scheduled and
facilitated through OCJCS Public Affairs.

62. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, in addition to ``Frankly, We
Did Win The Election,'' by Michael C. Bender; ``Peril,'' by Bob
Woodward and Robert Costa; and ``I Alone Can Fix It: Donald Trump's
Catastrophic Final Year,'' by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, how many
additional authors have you spoken with about the Trump presidency?
General Milley. Two. I routinely speak with reporters and authors
as part of my duties as Chairman in order to inform the American
people. These engagements are planned in coordination with my public
affairs office.

63. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, please provide all written
communications and transcripts of any recorded conversations you had
with the press or authors regarding the following books: ``Frankly, We
Did Win The Election,'' by Michael C. Bender; ``Peril,'' by Bob
Woodward and Robert Costa; and ``I Alone Can Fix It: Donald Trump's
Catastrophic Final Year,'' by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig.
General Milley. I do not possess any such written communication or
transcripts. Any documented communication would only be between these
individuals and my public affairs office to coordinate the details of
such conversations.

64. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, have you ever had on or off
the record conversations with, or provided any information to, an
author or member of the press regarding any other books, including, but
not limited to, the following--and if so, with whom did you
communicate:
``Landslide, The Final Days of the Trump Presidency'' by
Michael Wolff
``In Trump's Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future
of the GOP'' by David Drucker
``Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show'' by Jonathan
Karl
``Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our
Democracy and Still Could'' by Adam Schiff
``Nightmare Scenario, Inside the Trump Administration's
Response to the Pandemic That Changed History'' by Yasmeen Abutaleb and
Damian Paletta
An untitled and forthcoming book by Peter Baker and Susan
Glasser
``I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump
White House'' by Stephanie Grisham, October 2021
``For Such A Time As This,'' by Kayleigh McEnany,
December 2021
``In Trump Time: A Journal of Americas Plague Year'' by
Peter Navarro, November 2021
General Milley. I conduct routine on the record, off the record,
background interviews with journalists and authors. These are scheduled
by my public affairs office.

65. Senator Blackburn. General Milley, if you answered yes to the
previous question, please provide all written communications and
transcripts of any recorded conversations you had regarding these
books.
General Milley. I do not possess any such written communications or
transcripts.
disclosure
66. Senator Blackburn. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and
General McKenzie, in accordance with your testimony on Tuesday, will
you please provide the committee with any written recommendations that
either you personally, your command, or your department made to the
President of the United States; related to the withdraw of forces from
Afghanistan in accordance with the appropriate classifications.
Secretary Austin. The Administration, through the National Security
Council process, conducted a rigorous interagency review of the way
forward for Afghanistan in advance of the President's announcement in
April. The Administration asked for and thoughtfully considered my
views, as well as the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the USCENTCOM
Commander, and the United States Forces-Afghanistan commander. We each
advised the President on a broad range of options and our assessment of
their potential outcomes. I will not comment on the specific
recommendations I made to the President or on the details of these
executive discussions.
General Milley. I gave the range of options and my best military
advice orally and in writing to both Presidents Trump and Biden through
Secretaries of Defense Esper, Miller, and Austin, in coordination with
Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSAs)
O'Brien and Sullivan.
General McKenzie. I provide my military advice through the chain of
command--via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary
of Defense and, at the Secretary's discretion, to the President. I do
not engage with the President directly without the Secretary's
awareness. It is at the Secretary's and the President's discretion to
share any written correspondence between the Department and the
President.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Josh Hawley
dod input regarding evacuation timeline
67. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, did General Miller speak to you about the timeline for
closing the United States embassy in Kabul, and if so, what did he
recommend, when did he provide that recommendation, and did you share
his recommendation with officials at the State Department or White
House?
Secretary Austin. Department of Defense leaders, including General
Miller, were working closely with the Department of State to support
security requirements for United States Embassy Kabul. Any decision to
close the embassy ultimately rests with the Department of State. I am
satisfied that the National Security Council-led interagency review was
robust and that the President sought out and listened to a range of
expert perspectives.
General Milley. [Deleted.]
General McKenzie. During General Miller's time in command of USFOR-
A, he did not speak with me about suspending operations at the embassy
in Kabul. At that time, we conducted planning based on the assumptions
that GIROA would continue as the effective governing entity and that
accordingly, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul would remain in active
operation.

68. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, did you advise the State Department to close the U.S. embassy
in Kabul prior to August 12, and if so, what did you recommend, when
did you make this recommendation, and to whom did you provide this
recommendation?
Secretary Austin. The Department of Defense planned for a wide
range of contingencies for security at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
During interagency discussions, we provided our recommendations for DOD
support to Embassy security. Because of that contingency planning, we
were able to safely draw down our embassy and move our diplomatic
mission to the airport. We were also able to secure the airport and
start the evacuation within 72 hours of the decision to execute a
noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO).
General Milley. [Deleted.]
General McKenzie. No. On 08 July, the President announced that the
United States would end combat operations on 31 August, and that the
United States would continue the diplomatic mission. Throughout July
and August, USFOR-A FWD advised the U.S. Embassy Kabul staff, including
the Ambassador, on the security situation, including the status of the
Afghan National Defense Forces, threat conditions, and DOD-assessed
impacts should a U.S. presence remain. Those engagements became more
frequent and more focused as the security situation deteriorated,
including through the end of the NEO.

69. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, when asked during the hearing
on Tuesday about the Department of Defense's communications with the
State Department regarding the timeline for a noncombatant evacuation,
you responded, ``We provided our input to the State Department.'' What
specific ``input'' did the Department of Defense provide to the State
Department regarding the timeline for a noncombatant evacuation, and
when did the Department of Defense provide that input?
Secretary Austin. Through a series of senior-level National
Security Council-led interagency meetings, the Department of Defense
provided input, including but not limited to military capabilities and
planning to support a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) under
different scenarios, and support to the Department of State. It is the
Department of State's decision to formally declare a NEO.

70. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, did any Department of Defense official object to the
timelines or any other aspect of the plans presented by the State
Department for a noncombatant evacuation at the June 11 interagency
table-top exercise referenced in General Milley's written statement,
and if so, who objected and what specifically were their objections?
Secretary Austin. DOD conducted a thorough analysis of and provided
constructive input into the Department of State's timelines and plans
for a possible noncombatant evacuation operation, including areas where
DOD required additional information or had concerns.
General Milley. At an Interagency planning session designed to
prepare for the June 11, 2021 Interagency Table-Top Exercise, the NSC
provided policy-framing guidance to focus only on the retrograde of
U.S. and NATO Forces from Afghanistan. My staff continued to conduct
daily meetings with their State Department counterparts to maintain
situational awareness and reinforce the need for a more-involved
Interagency planning effort to ensure the development of a coherent NEO
plan and for embassy drawdown to pace with the U.S. military drawdown.
General McKenzie. The June IA TTX focused on withdrawal from
Afghanistan, not NEO operations. The State Department did not present a
NEO plan at this TTX.

71. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, did any Department of Defense official object to the
timelines or any other aspect of the plans presented by the State
Department for a noncombatant evacuation at the August 6 interagency
table-top exercise referenced in General Milley's written statement,
and if so, who objected and what specifically were their objections?
Secretary Austin. As a part of the table-top discussions, DOD
identified and conveyed the U.S. military's capabilities and
constraints to evacuate individuals under different scenarios. DOD
conducted a thorough analysis of and provided constructive input into
the Department of State's timelines and plans for a possible
noncombatant evacuation operation.
General Milley. On August 6, 2021, the Afghanistan Interagency
Table-Top Exercise focused on the DOD NEO Base Plan. State Department
presented tripwires which were discussed and agreed upon.
General McKenzie. No. We requested clarification and more fidelity
on the categories and likely numbers of evacuees, more fidelity on
potential locations for DOS-directed temporary safe havens (TSH) for
potential NEO evacuees once they were moved from Afghanistan, and for
better understanding of DOS decision points that would lead to a
request for DOD support to execute a NEO.

72. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, did any Department of Defense official at the August 6 table-
top exercise advise the State Department that they should begin a
noncombatant evacuation immediately?
Secretary Austin. As a part of the table-top discussions, DOD
identified and conveyed the U.S. military's capabilities and
constraints to evacuate individuals under different scenarios. DOD
conducted a thorough analysis of and provided constructive input into
the Department of State's timelines and plans for a possible
noncombatant evacuation operation.
General Milley. Senior military leaders were clear and consistent
in signaling a need for the State Department, as the lead federal
agency, to accelerate the withdrawal of embassy personnel.
General McKenzie. USCENTCOM's role in the Interagency Wargame on
7AUG21 was to review Joint Staff Courses of Action and provide our
Concept of the Operation in support of the NEO when directed by the
Department of State.
force requirements in afghanistan prior to and during the neo
73. Senator Hawley. General Milley, in your military judgement,
should the United States have sent forces back to Kabul prior to August
12 in order to disrupt, delay, or degrade the Taliban's ability to
seize control of Kabul, in part or whole, and prepare for a
noncombatant evacuation?
General Milley. At the time, I did not assess, nor did the intel
community, that the ANDSF would disband in 10 days and completely
abandon Kabul without a fight. In order to disrupt, delay, or degrade
the Taliban's advance and seize Kabul, the US would have had to
introduce at least a full Brigade Combat Team (BCT), which is
approximately 4,000 to 5,000 troops in addition to the BCT equivalent
to secure HKIA. So we would be re-introducing 10,000 troops and it
would mean re-intensifing the war with the Taliban which was not in
accordance with the strategic guidance we were operating under and the
likely cost in U.S. casualties would be significant. Finally, the time
required to execute this COA would have required the United States to
remain in Afghanistan for an extended period of time with no clear end-
state. For all of those reasons I did not make that recommendation, nor
did anyone else, although it was considered.

74. Senator Hawley. General Milley, if you judge that the United
States should have sent forces back to Kabul prior to August 12, with
whom did you share that judgment and when did you do so?
General Milley. [Deleted.]

75. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General
McKenzie, on August 18, 2021, Secretary Austin said, ``We don't have
the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people.'' Did
the Department of Defense request additional forces during the
noncombatant evacuation operation in order to rescue Americans trapped
in Kabul or for other purposes, when did it make any such requests, and
were any such requests approved or denied?
Secretary Austin. The Department of Defense did make requests for
support during the noncombatant evacuation operation, and those
approved requests provided additional forces to improve security and to
synchronize command and control in order to improve our ability to
increase the number of people being evacuated. While we did not discuss
these operations at the time, U.S. forces undertook outside-the-wire
missions, including the helicopter airlift of 169 Americans from a
facility outside the airport to HKIA during the evacuation.
General Milley. On August 18, 2021, the military was still building
combat power at the Kabul airport following the request for a non-
combatant evacuation operation. At that point, we had approximately
4,000 troops to secure and defend the airport. From that point forward,
our troop presence grew as we continued to flow in troops and build
combat power. We used a number of innovative approaches to go out, pick
up and facilitate the entry of American citizens to the airport as the
situation continued to develop. Our forces on the ground were often in
direct contact with American citizens in the area to assist them in
gaining access to the airport perimeter.
General McKenzie. No additional forces were requested for the
stated purpose of rescuing Americans trapped in Kabul. This action
would have required the introduction of significantly more forces into
Afghanistan and would have sparked a conflict with the Taliban. As an
alternative, we used a variety of means to recover Americans who did
not have direct access to the airport.
plans and resourcing for oth ct in afghanistan
76. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, the Pentagon has said
repeatedly in recent years that the Indo-Pacific is its ``priority
theater.'' If the Indo-Pacific is the priority theater, would you agree
that INDOPACOM should be the option of last resort for sourcing
requests for forces by other combatant commands, particularly for high-
demand, low-density assets?
Secretary Austin. I strongly support, and am committed to
maintaining, a combat-credible, force posture in the Indo-Pacific
region to deter our adversaries and defend our interests, allies, and
partners. The Global Force Management (GFM) process, through which the
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Combatant Commands, the Joint
Staff, and the Military Services review and provide recommendations on
requests for forces, enables me to make informed risk management
decisions in response to emergent crises and global challenges.
Circumstances can emerge where an urgent operational requirement--such
as the deployment of forces to conduct the non-combatant evacuation
operation from Afghanistan--requires temporary reallocation of forces
from higher strategic priorities. I am confident that the current
guidance and priorities we have in place enable me to make
strategically-aligned force management decisions that balance these
tradeoffs.

77. Senator Hawley. Secretary Austin, as the Department of Defense
formulates options for conducting over-the-horizon counterterrorism
options in Afghanistan, have you provided explicit guidance to minimize
the use of forces assigned to INDOPACOM, and if not, why not?
Secretary Austin. The Department's focus is on China as the pacing
challenge, and this informs my approach to the Global Force Management
process. This process provides a robust review of available forces with
the expertise, training, readiness, and experience necessary to
successfully complete the mission. It includes scrutiny at multiple
levels within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Combatant
Commands, the Joint Staff, and the Military Services. Their
recommendations provide the foundation for a Department-wide approach
to address emergent crises and global challenges, including the complex
and multi-faceted challenges of executing over-the-horizon
counterterrorism missions. I am confident that our current processes
can effectively balance priorities.

78. Senator Hawley. General Milley, the Pentagon has reported to
Congress consistently over the years that CENTCOM consumes the vast
majority of air-breathing ISR (that is, non-spaced based assets)
available across the Joint Force. As a result, other combatant commands
such as INDOPACOM and United States European Command (EUCOM) have had
to live with substantial ISR shortfalls in their theaters as they try
to monitor China, Russia, and North Korea. Would you agree that as we
try to monitor terrorist groups in Afghanistan, we should try to use
the ISR assets already available to CENTCOM rather than take assets
from other combatant commands?
General Milley. Airborne ISR missions in support of the over-the-
horizon counter-terrorism (OTH-CT) mission in Afghanistan continue to
use assets tailored to CT that were already in the USCENTCOM theater.
We globally allocate resources based on National Defense Strategy
priorities, including countering violent extremist organizations. If
the environment in Afghanistan changes in the future, driving a need
for additional forces to execute OTH-CT, I would advise the Secretary
on the allocation and transfer of forces among combatant commands as
necessary to address the threat. We will continue to assess global
demands based on priorities and risk.

79. Senator Hawley. General Milley, U.S. forces, sensors, and
platforms vary in their relevance for over-the-horizon counterterrorism
operations. Would you agree that an aircraft carrier operating from the
Arabian Sea is a relatively expensive and inefficient way to conduct
counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan?
General Milley. We constantly balance competing world-wide demands
for Department of Defense capabilities. Assets with diverse
capabilities and greater mobility, like an aircraft carrier, will
inevitably support a variety of operations across multiple Combatant
Commands in order to balance both short and long-term priorities. OTH
CT operations from an aircraft carrier is not the most efficient, nor
the most cost effective method over a lengthy period of time.

80. Senator Hawley. General Milley, when INDOPACOM is our priority
theater, and when strategic competition with China and Russia are the
top priorities of our strategy, is the optimal use of our limited fleet
of aircraft carriers to operate in the Arabian Sea monitoring terrorist
groups in Afghanistan?
General Milley. As a global force, we constantly balance priorities
world-wide. We align capabilities, not specific assets, to these
priorities and there are many factors to consider when doing so. The
optimal use of an aircraft carrier is against nation states. However,
with their wide range of capabilities and great mobility, aircraft
carriers will shift from one Combatant Command to another as we adjust
forces globally in support of our highest priorities.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Tommy Tuberville
withdrawal plan
81. Senator Tuberville. Secretary Austin, was an Afghanistan
withdrawal plan drafted prior to January 20, 2020 by the previous
administration?
Secretary Austin. I am not able to speak to plans developed by the
previous administration.

82. Senator Tuberville. Secretary Austin, was this [previous
administration] plan being implemented during the transition period?
Secretary Austin. When I came into office, I received briefings on
the situation in Afghanistan and the posture of United States and
Resolute Support forces throughout the region at that point in time.
Those briefings provided me information about the pace of the drawdown
of U.S. forces from 12,600 in February 2020 when the United States-
Taliban Agreement was signed to approximately 2,500 when this
administration began. I am not able to speak to plans developed by the
previous administration.

83. Senator Tuberville. Secretary Austin, during the House Armed
Services hearing on Wednesday, September 19, you stated that ``there
was no hand-off'' to you in regards to an Afghanistan withdrawal plan
during the transition. Why did you not review the previous
administration's plan?
Secretary Austin. When I assumed my position as Secretary of
Defense, I made a point to get the facts and assessments directly from
the Commanders to inform my own views, which I shared with the
President and during the interagency policy review leading up to the
decision in April 2021 to withdraw United States forces from
Afghanistan.

84. Senator Tuberville. Secretary Austin, if you did not review the
previous administration's plan:
At what level was it written?
When was this plan initially presented to the Department
of Defense under the previous administration?
When was this plan initially presented to the Department
of Defense under the Biden administration?
Who was this plan reviewed by within the Biden
administration?
Who made the decision that you did not need to review the
previous administration's Afghanistan withdrawal plan?
Secretary Austin. I cannot speak to the previous Administration's
plans. When I assumed my position as Secretary of Defense, I made a
point to get the facts and assessments directly from the commanders to
inform my own views, which I shared with the President and during the
interagency policy review leading up to the decision in April 2021 to
withdraw United States forces from Afghanistan.

85. Senator Tuberville. Secretary Austin, when did you first review
the Biden administration's withdrawal plan?
Secretary Austin. I was given numerous opportunities to provide the
Department's views and my personal advice to the President. I was
involved in every stage of the policy discussion on our options for
Afghanistan. The President was thoughtful and deliberate in considering
a range of facts and advice before he made his decision to withdraw
remaining United States forces from Afghanistan by August 31, 2021. I
supported his decision.

86. Senator Tuberville. Secretary Austin, was the plan you signed
off on written under the previous administration or the Biden
administration?
Secretary Austin. The agreement reached by the previous
administration required all United States forces to be out of
Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. In return, the Taliban stopped attacking
our forces and our partners. President Biden asked for a review of
genuine, realistic options to advance and protect U.S. interests. The
interagency process that this administration ran generated those
options. What emerged was a clear-eyed assessment of the best path
forward to advance American interests: ending the war in Afghanistan
after 20 years so that we can address the global threat picture as it
exists today, not as it was two decades ago. Had the President not
followed through on the commitments that his predecessor made, the risk
to force would have exponentially increased.