Top takeaways from marathon Senate hearing on Afghanistan failures

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.

BIDEN: No, they didn’t. It was split. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?

BIDEN: No. Not at — not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a time frame all troops. They didn’t argue against that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, no one told — your military advisers did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”?

BIDEN: No. No one said that to me that I can recall. 

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan called that a “false statement.” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley put it more bluntly, “The president of the United States lied to the American people.”

IN BIDEN’S DEFENSE: At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki focused on two parts of Biden’s response: that advisers were “split,” and whether they said keeping 2,500 troops would result in a “stable situation.”

“There was no one who said five years from now we could have 2,500 troops and that would be sustainable,” said Psaki. “It’s also important to note that the risks we were talking about here were the possibility, the likelihood of increasing a troop presence, which we now know to absolutely been the reality, given it required 6,000 troops to just protect the airport.”

That was backed up somewhat by testimony from both Milley and McKenzie. “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,” said McKenzie.

By August, with most of the U.S. withdrawal complete, the Joint Chiefs were unanimous it was time to leave, as Biden said in an Aug. 31 address.

“On the 1st of September, we were going to go to war again with the Taliban — of that, there was no doubt,” said Milley. “If we stayed past the 31st, which militarily is feasible, but it would’ve required an additional commitment of significant amounts of forces, probably 18th Airborne Corps, 15, 20, maybe 25,000 troops.”

“We would’ve had to re-seize Bagram, we would’ve had to clear Kabul, the 6,000 Taliban that were already in Kabul,” Milley said. “That would’ve resulted in significant casualties on the U.S. side, and it would’ve placed American citizens that are still there at greater risk.”

PENTAGON BRASS REVEAL BIDEN IGNORED TROOP RECOMMENDATIONS ON AFGHANISTAN

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HAPPENING TODAY: Round two of the congressional post-mortem on the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan will begin today as the venue shifts to the House Armed Services Committee, where committee members will have the advantage of already knowing how Austin and company will answer most of the obvious questions about what went wrong.

“Secretary Austin, Gen. Milley, and Gen. McKenzie will need to be ready to give us answers on how we’re going to conduct counterterrorism operations now that we have zero presence in Afghanistan,” said Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, lead Republican on the committee. “The administration’s current over-the-horizon ‘capability’ is a farce – taking out terrorists is only useful when you know where the terrorist is. Without persistent ISR capabilities or reliable intelligence on the ground, that’s impossible.”

‘STRATEGIC FAILURE’: At yesterday’s hearing, it was North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis who first described the evacuation mission, the largest airlift in history, as “a logistical success, but a strategic failure.”

Gen. Milley said Tillis “said it very well” and came back to the description several times. “Strategically, strategically, the war is lost. The enemy’s in Kabul so that you have a strategic failure while you simultaneously have an operational and tactical success by the soldiers on the ground.”

AUSTIN’S ADMISSION, ‘WE COULD NOT FORGE A NATION’: In his opening statement, Defense Secretary Llyod Austin offered a sobering assessment on why the war was lost and the mission to build an effective Afghan army failed.

“We helped build a state … 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,” Austin said. “We need to consider some uncomfortable truths: 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.”

LESSONS LEARNED: Milley’s big insight was that in retrospect, it was a mistake to try to make the Afghan military a mirror image of the U.S. military. “We made them too dependent on technology, too dependent on our capabilities. We didn’t take in the cultural aspects perhaps as much as we should have.”

Milley also said pulling U.S. advisers out of Afghan military units three years ago left the U.S. without a good feel for the morale and fighting spirit of the Afghan forces. “You no longer can assess things like leadership and will,” he said. “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 can’t measure the human heart with a machine, you got to be there.”

MILLEY DEFENDS CHINA AND PELOSI CALLS: Milley launched a preemptive defense in his opening statement over revelations in the book Peril, that describes calls he had with his Chinese counterpart to assure China the U.S. was not planning an attack, and with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over control of U.S. nuclear weapons.

“At Secretary of Defense [Mark] Esper’s direction, I made a call to Gen. 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,” Milley said. “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 deescalate. My message, again, was consistent. Stay calm, steady, and deescalate. We are not going to attack you.”

Late in the hearing, Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan zeroed in on the key allegation in the book, “You’re quoted in the Woodward book as telling the top Chinese Communist military commander, “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time.” Is that true, Gen. Milley?

“Let me tell you what I actually said, senator,” Milley replied. “What I said is if there’s going to be a war, if there’s going to be an attack, there’s going to be a lot of calls and tension ahead of time… And I told him, if there was going to be an attack, there’ll be plenty of communications going back and forth, your intel system’s going to pick it up. I said, I’ll probably call you, everybody’ll be calling you.”

TRUMP OFFICIALS KNEW ABOUT INFAMOUS CHINA CALL, MILLEY INSISTS

MILLEY, ‘I AM NOT IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND AND I KNOW THAT’: Milley defended his Jan. 8 call with Pelosi as an effort to reassure her that “processes, protocols, and procedures” were in place to prevent an illegal, unauthorized, or accidental launch of nuclear weapons.

“She was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the president,” Milley said. The book quotes from a transcript in which Pelosi says Trump is crazy. “You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”

“Madam Speaker,” Milley is reported to have replied, “I agree with you on everything.”

“I explained to her that the president is the sole nuclear launch authority, and he doesn’t launch them alone,” Milley said yesterday. “And that I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the United States.”

MILLEY ADMITS SPEAKING TO REPORTERS FOR BOOKS

MILLEY SPOKE TO STAFF, NOT COMMANDERS: At one point, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker referred to an allegation in Peril that Milley “told combatant commanders to report back to you” regarding any order to launch nuclear weapons. “You’re not in their chain of command, they report directly to the commander in chief through the secretary,” Wicker said. “And so to the extent that you told them to report to you, they were not in your chain of command.”

The Woodward book does not make that allegation. It says Milley talked to a one-star general and colonels who man the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, not four-star combatant commanders.

“By law, I am not in the chain of command, and I know that,” Milley said. “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 adviser.”

“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 practice daily,” Milley said. “At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself in the chain of command.”

MILLEY’S NON-RESIGNATION SPEECH: In a moment that could have come straight from a Hollywood screenplay, Milley responded passionately to a question from Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who asked why Milley didn’t resign when Biden rejected his advice on Afghanistan.

Here’s his off-the-cuff speech, which ends with a mic drop moment:

“Senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing, and it’s a political act if I’m 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’s my legal requirement. That’s what the law is. The president doesn’t have to agree with that advice. He doesn’t have to make those decisions just because we’re generals. And it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken. This country doesn’t want generals figuring out what orders we are going to accept and do or not. That’s not our job. The principle of civilian control of the military is absolutely critical to this republic. In addition to that, just from a personal standpoint, you know, my dad didn’t get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima, and those kids there at Abbey Gate, they don’t get a choice to resign. And I’m not going to turn my back on them. They can’t resign, so I’m not going to resign. There’s no way. If the orders are illegal, we’re in a different place. But if the orders are legal from civilian authority, I intend to carry them out.”

OTHER THINGS WE LEARNED: Here are some quick takes and notable quotes from the rest of the hearing.

— U.S. Afghanistan commander Gen. Scott Miller did have a chance to provide his objections directly to President Joe Biden, contrary to what Sen. James Inhofe implied. “But he and I both had the opportunity to be in executive session with the president, and I can’t share anything beyond making that statement,” McKenzie said.

— The U.S. is not requesting use of Russian bases for Afghanistan operations, according to Secretary Austin. “I can assure you that, you know, we are not seeking Russia’s permission to do anything,” insisted Austin, who said Milley’s recent meeting with his Russian counterpart was to seek clarification of an offer of assistance that Russian President Vladimir Putin made to President Joe Biden. “General Milley can speak for himself, but I believe that he asked for clarification on what that offer was,” Austin said.

— Despite reports that U.S. allies left the Kabul airport to collect their citizens for evacuation, McKenzie insists that never happened. “I don’t believe any of those nations conducted ground patrols into Kabul from HKIA,” McKenzie told Sen. Tom Cotton. “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 off or from HKIA going out.”

— McKenzie also told Cotton he did not threaten to bomb the Taliban if they took over Kabul, contrary to a report. “It’s been reported by NBC News that you told Taliban leader Baradar on Aug. 15 that if they took Kabul, we would bomb them. They obviously took Kabul on Aug. 15. We didn’t bomb them,” Cotton said. “That report is incorrect,” McKenzie replied.

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The Rundown

Washington Examiner: Pentagon brass reveal Biden ignored troop recommendations on Afghanistan

Washington Examiner: Trump officials knew about infamous China call, Milley insists

Washington Examiner: Fewer than 100 Americans ‘ready to leave’ remain in Afghanistan, Austin says

Washington Examiner: Taliban-run Kabul University bans women

Washington Examiner: US and British navies needle China with show of force

Washington Examiner: China tells NATO chief that allies should stay out of the Indo-Pacific

Washington Examiner: Marine who criticized military leadership for Afghan withdrawal in the brig

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Defense News: DoD, VA officials prep for a possible government shutdown later this week

Air Force Magazine: Air Force Reserve Plans for Gaps Between Retiring Old Aircraft, Bringing in Modern Planes

Reuters: Foreign Attempts To Besiege China Will Fail, Chinese Envoy To UK Says

AP: China Plans To Unveil Drones, Moon Rocket At Air Show

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Military Times: Threats From Russia More Immediate, But Threats From China Greater: Report

19fortyfive.com: China’s J-20 Stealth Fighter Now Has Made in China Engines

Washington Post: Macron says Europeans need to stop being naive and assert independence from the United States

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Calendar

WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 29

8:45 a.m. National Harbor Marina — Defense Strategies Institute 2021 Military Tactical Communications Summit with Col. Jeff Mrazik, deputy chief of the Air Force Advanced Battle Management System Cross Functional Team. Register at https://dsigroup.org/

9:30 a.m. 2118 Rayburn — House Armed Services Committee hearing: “Ending the U.S. Military Mission in Afghanistan,” with Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense; Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander, U.S. Central Command. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

9:30 a.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual discussion: “Recent developments on the Korean Peninsula,” with Sydney Seiler, national intelligence officer for North Korea at the National Intelligence Council. https://www.csis.org/events/korea-chair-capital-cable-34-sydney-seiler

1 p.m. — Center for Security Policy discussion: “Emboldened Iranian State-Sponsored Terrorism in the Raisi Era,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y.; Marshall Billingslea, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing; Victoria Coates, senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and a former deputy national security advisor on the National Security Council staff; and Simone Ledeen, visiting fellow in the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, and a former deputy assistant Defense secretary for the Middle East. https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/events

11 a.m. — Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress virtual book discussion on To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond, Margarita Konaev, Associate Director of Analysis and Research Fellow, Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Kathleen McInnis, specialist in international security, Congressional Research Service; Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, adjunct scholar, Modern War Institute; Kera “Puff” Rolsen, commander, 87 EWS Combat Shield; and Steven Leonard, senior fellow, Modern War Institute. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register

THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 30

9:30 a.m. G50 Dirksen — Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to receive testimony on Afghanistan, with Thomas Joscelyn, senior fellow, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies senior editor, The Long War Journal, and Vali Nasr, professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and former senior advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings

11 a.m. — International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War virtual discussion: “”Eliminating the Existential Threat of Nuclear Weapons.” Undersecretary-General and UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu; Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross; Shekhar Mehta, president of Rotary International; and Ruth Mitchell, board chair of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Register at https://www.ippnw.org/eliminating-the-threat

FRIDAY | OCTOBER 1

10 a.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual event, “ A Conversation with Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen H. Hicks,” with Nina Easton, CSIS senior associate; and Beverly Kirk, fellow and director for outreach, International Security Program, and director, CSIS Smart Women, Smart Power Initiative. https://www.csis.org/events/conversation