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Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 28, 2021 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Back in now.

As we look at what could be coming in terms of questioning, Dana, I'm curious, based on what we heard from Secretary Blinken just a couple of weeks ago, how much do you think what we did or did not hear -- actually, let me pause for a minute.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: There is Senator Jack Reed, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat of Rhode Island.

Let's listen in for opening statements.

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): 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 Overst (ph), U.S. Air Force, for reappointment to the grade of general and to be commander of U.S. Transportation Command. All of these nominations have been before the committee the required length of time. Is there a motion to favorably report this list of the 2,993 pending military nominations to the Senate?

Is there a second?

All in favor please say aye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aye.

REED: The motion carries.

Thank you.

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 U.S. 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 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 two 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 a 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 a 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 in 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 Chiefs of Staff, and General Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command.

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 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 who 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 the convoluted counterinsurgency and nation building. While the U.S. 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 inflexion 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 of 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.

[09:35:06]

The Taliban, with momentum on the battlefield, and no incentives on 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'd 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 warning of their imminent takeover.

Finally, while we have transitioned our military from Afghanistan after largely achieving our counterterrorism objectives, we must continue to insure 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 insure 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 during 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 it over to 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 five 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 SBC 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 staff very little time to review. I hope that when these witnesses appear again before this committee, they will allow the committee -- they will follow the committee rules and customs.

Now, let me turn to Ranking Member Inhofe.

SEN. JAMES INHOFE (R-OK): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let's make sure everyone understands that the five minute limit doesn't affect opening statements.

Let me say a little bit stronger the statement that was made by our chairman, that we should -- there's 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 didn't have that opportunity.

I want to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to our service members and our veterans, our men and women in uniform, bravely volunteered to go into harm's way to -- 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 our -- 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 withdraw 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.

[09:40:02]

Even worse, this was avoidable. Everything that happened was foreseen. My colleagues on this committee, and the commanders in charge, we saw it coming and so we were here -- 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 condition-based approach. You expressed your concern, quote, about -- quote, about actions that the Taliban had taken up until this point, meaning, that the Taliban was not constraining al Qaeda as it had agreed to do so under the circumstances -- the conditions-based agreement that it signed with the Trump administration. That it was a conditions-based statement and position.

Around the same time, General Miller, who was then the commander of the U.S. 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 now on without the support that they have been used to for many years.

Throughout this spring we saw many districts quickly fall to the Taliban, many without firing a shot. This is why I urge the 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, have spent months urging the administration to evacuate Americans and our Afghan partners sooner. But President Biden and his advisers didn't listen to his combat commander, he didn't listen to Congress and he failed to anticipate what all of us knew would happen.

So, in August, we all witnessed the horror of the president's own making. Afghans died as they desperately gripped into the departing flights. The Taliban is in a stronger position than it had been in 9/11. The terrorist, Haqqani, members are now senior government -- in senior government positions. We went from -- well, we -- we will never negotiate with terrorists, to, we must negotiate with terrorists.

You know, I've -- in years that I've been here, we've heard that over and over again, you don't negotiate with terrorists. And now it's required. Worst of all, 13 brave Americans were killed in the evacuation effort. Three days later, the Biden administration said it struck an ISIS operative. In fact, it killed ten Afghan civilians, including seven children. And then President Biden concluded the withdraw -- the drawdown by doing the unthinkable, he left the 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 this -- these threats is something called over the horizon counterterrorism and that we do these types of operations elsewhere in the world. That's 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're at the mercy of the Pakistan government to get into the Afghan air space. Even if we can get there, we can't strike al Qaeda in Afghanistan because we're worried about what the Taliban will do in America -- to the Americans who are still there.

[09:45:04]

And Americans are still there.

The administration needs to be honest because the -- of President Biden's dishonest 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 experts, witnesses on Thursday, that's just two 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.

So, 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 U.S. service members, the deaths of hundreds of Afghan civilians, including women and children. That's what terrorists do. And left American citizens surrounded by the very terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. And they're still there.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REED: Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe.

Secretary Austin and Chairman Milley, the Doha Agreement -- oh, excuse me. We want to give you an opportunity to have opening statements as I've been reminded.

So, General Austin, you're recognized.

LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe, members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our recent drawdown and evacuation operations in Afghanistan. I'm pleased to be joined by Generals Milley and McKenzie, who I know will be able to provide you with additional context.

I'd like to make a few points before turning it over to you and to them.

And, 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 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. And we can discuss and debate the decisions, the policies and the turning points since April of this year when the president made clear his intent to end American involvement in this war. And we can debate the decisions over 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 service members who, along with their families, served and sacrificed to ensure that our homeland would never again be attacked the way it was on 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've 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'd 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 noncombatant evacuation as far back as this spring. Indeed, by late April, two weeks after the president's decision, military planners had crafted a number of evacuations scenarios. In mid-May, I ordered Central Command to make preparations for potential NEO. And two weeks later, I began prepositioning forces in the region to include three infantry battalions.

And on the 10th of August, we ran another tabletop exercise around a noncombatant 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. And before that weekend was out, another 3,000 or so ground troops had arrived, including elements of the 82nd Airborne.

But let's 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.

[09:50:02]

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 and thousands of people they would be manifesting onto airplanes. They and our commanders exceeded all expectations.

We planned to execute between 70,000 -- 80,000 -- 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. 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 17 days.

Was it perfect? Of course not. We moved so many people so quickly out of Kabul that we ran into capacity and screening problems at intermediate staging bases outside of Afghanistan. And we're still working to get Americans out who wish to leave. And we did not get out all of our Afghan allies enrolled in a Special Immigrant Visa program. We take that seriously and that's why we're 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.

And, tragically, lives were lost. Several Afghans killed climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day, 13 brave U.S. service members and dozens of Afghan civilians killed in a terrorist attack on the 26th, and we took as many as ten innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th.

Noncombatant evacuations remain among the most challenging military operations even in the best of circumstances. And the circumstances in August were anything but ideal. Extreme heat, a 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 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 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, 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 didn't we start evacuations sooner and why didn't we 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 U.S. troops in harm's way just to operate and defend it. And it would have contributed little to the mission that we'd 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 boots -- U.S. boots on the ground.

As for when we started evacuations, we offered input to state -- 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 operations at greater risk.

[09:55:15]

And as I said, the fact that our troops were on the ground so quickly is due in large part to our planning and our prepositioning of forces.

And 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 1st of September. And as you know, we face 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 a 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 didn't fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in the senior ranks, that we didn't grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we didn't 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.

And, 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 couldn't provide them with the will to win, at least not all of them. And as a veteran of that war, I am personally reckoning with all of that.

But I hope, as I said at the outset, that we do not allow a debate about how this war ended to cloud our pride in the way that our people fought it. They prevented another 9/11. They showed extraordinary courage and compassion in the war's last days, 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 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.

REED: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

General Milley, I believe you have a statement.

GEN. MARK MILLEY, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: 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 cutdown 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's no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from Afghanistan, which was our core, original mission. And everyone who served in that war should be proud. Your service mattered.

[10:00:02]

Beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers, consolidated and closed bases and retrograded equipment