Afghanistan withdrawal hearing: Live updates from the House | CNN Politics

The House hearing on the US withdrawal in Afghanistan just wrapped.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and head of US Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie were grilled on the House Armed Services Committee about the decisions they made before, during and after the evacuation effort in Kabul.

The top military leaders testified on Tuesday in the Senate for the first time before Congress since the full exit of US troops from Afghanistan.

According to his written testimony as obtained by CNN on Wednesday, Milley detailed four key dates that went into the planning and execution of the Afghanistan evacuation and withdrawal. Milley did not deliver the comments on camera, but defended his action’s in today’s hearing, while acknowledging that the US military did not predict that the Afghan government would collapse so quickly.

The Biden administration has been criticized for not having plans ready to carry out the withdrawal of forces and the evacuation of US citizens and others. Milley pushed back on that criticism by laying out some of the key events in the planning around Afghanistan.

He referenced these four dates:

April 28: The top military leaders, including Milley, the Defense Secretary, the Joint Chiefs, the commander of US Central Command and others held an Afghanistan Retrograde Rehearsal within the Defense Department. This event focused on the withdrawal of US forces.

May 8: All relevant Cabinet members held an interagency table top exercise about the withdrawal of forces.

“This event covered a rehearsal of concept for the complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and covered various branch plans and sequels. It was to ensure that the US Government, Interagency, and partners and allies had a shared vision of our withdrawal timeline, the plan itself, and to ensure it was synchronized.”

June 11: One month later, the Joint Staff held a table top exercise for a non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO), including senior officials from across the interagency. Officials looked at a series of “key milestones” for a NEO, as well as contingency in case of an embassy closure, intermediate staging base locations, and the process for sorting and screening evacuees.

Aug. 6: Senior government officials carried out another table top exercise to look at the possibility of a civilian evacuation under two different conditions: one where the surrounding environment posed some challenges to the evacuation and one where the surrounding environment made it incredibly difficult.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believed the war in Afghanistan had reached a stalemate about five to six years ago during a House Armed Services hearing on Wednesday.

Milley said he didn’t believe there was a “military solution” to the war in Afghanistan as of five to six years ago, but instead thought a negotiated settlement was the best option.

“But I knew years ago that it was stalemated, said that repeatedly, internal and external, and that winning would be defined as a negotiated solution, as most insurgencies are historically. They result in a negotiated solution between the insurgent and the regime. And I thought that was the best way that this could handle. I didn’t think there was military solution,” Milley said.

Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, apologized for members of the Republican party who have questioned Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Cheney referenced the insurrection on the Capitol on Jan. 6, calling it an “effort to stop the constitutionally prescribed process of counting electoral votes.”

She said it was “the first time in our nation’s history that we did not have a peaceful transfer of power.” 

“I want to apologize for those members of this committee,” she added.

Watch the moment:

Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told lawmakers Wednesday he was not consulted on President Trump’s Nov. 11 order to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by mid-January. 

Asked if he had been consulted on the Trump administration’s decision “to open negotiations solely with the Taliban to the exclusion of the Afghan government,” Milley said he was told “very, very late in the game,” just days before the signing of the Doha Agreement.

Milley said he “dutifully executed” the drawdown plans outlined in that agreement.

He and the head of the US Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie told the House Armed Services Committee that they developed plans for non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) but those plans did not initially account for large-scale evacuations of Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders.

“We had a plan to bring out mainly American citizens and people associated with the embassy. Planning later began to encompass the larger population, the at-risk Afghan population, the SIV population. But initially, to like every other plan, it’s centered on American citizens and their families,” McKenzie said.

He said planning for evacuated the larger population began “no later than early spring of this year.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and the top general of US Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie all said they knew that civilians had been killed in a US drone strike in Kabul hours after the strike occurred and it was days later when they knew the strike was an error. 

Since the strike, the US military acknowledged that the strike did not hit an ISIS target but targeted civilians, killing ten people, including seven children. The strike took place on Aug. 29 in Kabul. 

McKenzie said they did not know the strike was an “error” until a few days later, but they did know civilians were killed a few hours after the strike. 

“Well, so, we knew the strike hit civilians within four or five hours after the strike occurred. And US central command released a press release saying that. We did not know the target of the strike was an error, a mistake until some days later, but we knew pretty soon,” McKenzie said. 

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said that he is “concerned” that Bob Woodward’s book may mischaracterize him as being willing to “become politicized,” a characterization he disputes. 

Asked by GOP Rep. Jim Banks if he regretted speaking to Woodward, Milley said he did not.

“I think that it’s important for me to speak to the media,” he said. “I am trying to stay apolitical, and I believe I am.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin indicated that the Doha agreement allowed the Taliban to gain strength, telling House lawmakers that “many” Taliban prisoners, who were released by the Afghan government as a condition of the deal, went back to join the ranks of the militant group.

“In addition to that, we caused them to release 5,000 prisoners and those prisoners, many of those prisoners, went back to fill the ranks of the Taliban. So they got a lot stronger, they continued their attacks, we got smaller,” he said. 

According to the text of the Feb. 2020 agreement, which was not signed by the Afghan government, up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and up to 1,000 “prisoners of the other side will be released by March 10, 2020, the first day of intra-Afghan negotiations.”

In the months following the deal, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad repeatedly pressed for the sides to release the prisoners as a means to pave the way toward the start of intra-Afghan negotiations.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Aug. 2020, “We acknowledge that the release of these prisoners is unpopular. But this difficult action will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and Afghanistan’s friends: reduction of violence and direct talks resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war.”

“After 40 years of war and bloodshed and destruction, the parties are ready to embark on a political process to reach a negotiated settlement,” he said.  

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Wednesday there is “a real possibility” that al Qaeda or ISIS could reconstitute in Afghanistan in the next six to 36 months.

Milley said that “right this minute” the terrorist threat from Afghanistan is smaller than it was on 9/11, but that “the conditions could be set for a reconstitution of al Qaeda and/or ISIS.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin concurred with that assessment.

“Al Qaeda has been degraded over time. Now, terrorist organizations seek ungoverned spaces so that they can train and equip and thrive and, and so, there, there is clearly a possibility that that can happen here, going forward,” he said.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the war in Afghanistan, which spanned 20 years, “wasn’t lost in the last twenty days or even twenty months for that matter,” during a congressional hearing about the US withdrawal from the country on Tuesday. 

Milley said there are “an awful lot of causal factors” to why the war in Afghanistan ended the way it did, and “we’re gonna have to figure that out.” 

“A lot of lessons learned here,” he added.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley told lawmakers that the intelligence that led to then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper directing Milley to call his Chinese counterpart in the final days of the Trump administration to assure him that the US was not preparing to attack China had been disseminated across the highest levels of the administration, including in the President’s daily intelligence briefing.

Milley was responding to an accusation by GOP Rep. Michael Turner that he had not made Esper aware of the call until after it had happened.

“You chose to talk to reporters instead of us, and that’s of great concern,” said Turner. “No one in Congress knew that one of two of the major nuclear powers thought that they were perhaps being threatened for attack.”

Turner asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin if he learned of such intelligence whether he would “elevate that to the Cabinet and to Congress,” to which Austin replied that he would “follow standard protocol” and consider such actions.

Austin also defended Milley, saying, “what I heard him say yesterday and I think again today, is that his chain of command, the Secretary of Defense at the time was, was aware of the actions.” 

Milley said he would be “happy” to share the intelligence with Turner “and go over it with you line by line.”

“This is all done with oversight, and I tried to lay that out in the memoranda,” said Milley. “I tried to lay it out in a timeline in an unclassified way.”

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while his assessment was to maintain a presence of 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan, the decision to reduce the troop levels to 650 was made in “consultative process by the highest levels” of the government.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top general of US Central Command, said his view was also to keep 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan, and his opinion did not change. 

“My view was that we needed to maintain about 2,500, and that we also needed to work with our coalition partners who had about 6,000 troops in there, NATO and other core countries that would, that would remain there,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie later in the hearing said that 2,500 service members was the minimum number that would’ve been needed to retain Bagram Air Base.

“It has been my view that I recommended a level of 2,500, a level that would have allowed us to hold Bagram and other airfields as well. Once you go below that level and make a decision to go to zero, it is no longer feasible to hold Bagram,” he said.

Former President Trump signed an order that would have had US troops withdraw from Somalia by Dec. 31, 2020 and US troops withdraw from Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021. The order was later rescinded, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. 

The order had “two lines,” Milley said. “Line one was withdrawal force, US military forces from Somalia by 31 December, second sentence was withdraw US military forces from Afghanistan by 15 January.”

Milley went to the White House and “had some conversations with some folks, not the President,” after the order was signed, he said. 

“We discussed the cost risk benefit, etc. and the feasibility, acceptability, and suitability of that order,” he added. 

Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington, asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to talk about the advice that was provided to President Biden on Afghanistan prior to the US withdrawal.

Austin said that while he will always keep his recommendations to the President confidential, he could say that there was “no risk-free status quo option.”

Gen. Mark Milley, Joint Chiefs Chairman, said it was the unanimous view of the Joint Chiefs and key commanders in late-August that US forces should be out by Aug. 31 and that saying longer, while “military feasible,” would only come at an “extraordinarily high” cost, according to his written testimony provided as obtained by CNN on Wednesday.  

Milley did not deliver the comments on camera.

Milley said he was asked on Aug. 25, at the peak of the evacuation, for his “best military advice” on whether the US could maintain a military presence in Afghanistan past the end of the month.

The advice from Milley and the Pentagon’s top commanders was “unanimous,” Milley said. Staying past the end of the month posed a tremendous risk to US troops and citizens. 

“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,” he continued.

The commander of the United States Central Command, Gen. Kenneth Frank McKenzie, said “it was not feasible” to hold onto the US Embassy in Kabul, Hamid Karzai International Airport and the sprawling Bagram Air Base with the number of service members left in Afghanistan. 

McKenzie said the military worked closely with allies and partners after President Biden in April announced his plans for full withdrawal of US troops by Sept. 11, 2021. 

“On no occasion were they caught unaware by our movements; every base was handed off to Afghan forces, according to a mutually understood plan,” McKenzie said. 

McKenzie also addressed the evacuation operation that began in August. McKenzie said that officials planned to move a large number of people and tried to account for a “complete collapse” of Afghan security forces.

McKenzie also reiterated his statement from yesterday’s Senate hearing that he takes full responsibility for the drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians.

The top US general warned that a rapid withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan would pose an increased risk to the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and would contribute to the rise of violent extremist organizations, according to General Mark Milley’s written testimony as obtained by CNN on Wednesday. 

Milley did not deliver the comments on camera.

Milley said his analysis in the fall of 2020 was that an unconditional withdrawal would endanger the gains made in Afghanistan and damage US credibility abroad, as well as increase the likelihood of a rapid collapse of the Afghan government and military.

This was his analysis in his role as advisor to the President, the defense secretary, and the National Security Council, he added, and it did not change between the Trump administration and the Biden administration. 

A rapid withdrawal would also increase the potential for a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

After the signing of the Doha agreement in 2020, which led to a sense of inevitable victory for the Taliban and a failure of morale for the Afghan military, the Tailban increased their level of violence.

“For the entirety of the 2020 fighting season, the Taliban maintained a consistently higher than average level of violence throughout the country,” Milley said. Those attacks didn’t target US forces, per the Doha agreement, but they carried out between 80 and 120 attacks against Afghan military each day on average.

“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.”

Members of the House Armed Services Committee will grill Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command, on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The top military leaders testified on Tuesday for the first time before Congress since the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

They defended the planning that preceded the chaotic evacuation from Kabul, but acknowledged that they did not expect the swift collapse of the Afghan government.

Today’s hearing just kicked off.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is set to testify soon before the House Armed Services Committee on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Today’s hearing comes a day after Austin testified before a Senate panel. In his opening remarks, Austin emphasized the planning that preceded the evacuation from Afghanistan and the positioning of forces that allowed troops to arrive in Kabul fairly quickly as the evacuation began.

As early as spring, the Pentagon began thinking about the possibility of a non-combatant evacuation and preparing for a number of scenarios, Austin said. By early June, Austin pre-positioned forces in the region, he said, including three infantry battalions.

Although the first two days of the evacuation were “difficult,” Austin acknowledged, US troops restored order in 48 hours, and the herculean effort to move tens of thousands of American citizens and at-risk Afghans began in earnest.

“We are still working to get Americans out who wish to leave,” Austin said, though that is now the job of the State Department and the interagency, not the military. Lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for concluding the military evacuation and withdrawal from Afghanistan while there were still American citizens who wanted to leave the country. They have also criticized the administration’s inability to say just how many Americans are left in Afghanistan.

On Monday, a senior State Department official said the department is working to get out approximately 100 US citizens and Afghan Green Card holders from Afghanistan, but there was no indication of when that might happen or by what route they would leave the country.

Top US General Mark Milley offered a full-throated defense of his behavior during the last days of the Trump administration, including a phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart, as he and other senior military officials appeared before lawmakers on Tuesday for a hearing about the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Specifically, Milley said the call with the Chinese official was not only appropriate, but that numerous senior Trump officials were aware it occurred.

Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified publicly before Senate lawmakers Tuesday, the first time that top military officials are appearing before Congress since the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Austin and Milley were joined by the leader of US Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, who played an integral role in facilitating the evacuation from Kabul — an effort that has been the focus of immense bipartisan criticism since the last American military aircraft departed the Afghan capital.