Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby briefs the media at the Pentagon, August 16, 2021.

Transcript

Afternoon everybody uh I know we gave you an update this morning. Um So I brought a couple of uh additional briefers with me this afternoon to uh to flesh out some more detail from the kinds of things that we talked about earlier today. So with me is Major General hank taylor of the joint staff. He’s the Director of current Operations and Gary Reid who I think you all know. He is the director of our Afghanistan Crisis action Group. I’m gonna ask each gentleman to come up and say just a few words to give you some updates from their perspectives operations in the general’s case and on the S. I. V. Process and what D. O. D. Is trying to help along with that from mr reach perspective. And then we’ll get to some Q. And A. For a little bit. I will moderate that Q. And A. So I’ll still be up here calling on you uh and we’ll try to get through as many of you as you can in a limited amount of time that we have. So that with time being a constraint I’m gonna stop talking and bring up the general general. Good afternoon. Thank you. Mr Kirby. I want to reinforce what has already been said today a little bit earlier. The U. S. Military remains focused on the present mission to facilitate the safe evacuation of U. S. Citizens S. I. V. S. And afghans at risk to get these personnel out of Afghanistan as quickly and as safely as possible when this plan was put in place. We prepared for a number of contingencies and recognize that events unfolding at HK area has drawn concern and attention throughout the world. We’re actively monitoring the situation what’s happening on the ground and we will continue to support the commander and adjust forces as necessary to allow the mission to be successful. Our troops are trained professionals, they understand the complexity, the urgency and the importance of their mission. They remain agile. Our mission was and still is today to secure the airport so that we can evacuate. Said earlier, U. S. Citizens S. I. V. S. Afghans are risk out of the country. We have approximately 2500 troops that have moved into Kabul within the last 72 hours and more will arrive soon. By the end of the day. We expect nearly 3,030 500 troops on the ground. First for a real time update. Uh as of 1535 local eastern data time here. The airfield at HK I was open for operations shortly thereafter. The first C 17 landed with US marines on board And the next C17 is preparing to land as we speak With members of the 82nd Airborne Division. I’d also like to offer a couple of additional operational details. More than 700 s ivy applicants have departed Afghanistan in the past 48 hours by a combination of contract and commercial air Bring the total to date to nearly 2000 Mr. Reid here, I will have more details on that. The U. S. Military continues to support or supported the State Department with the closing of the U. S. Embassy in Kabul. Moving hunt several 100 personnel by helicopter to HK to those personnel remains safe and are preparing to depart. Forces continue to conduct operations, security operations at HK area. And as I said earlier we are in charge of air traffic control and that includes with commercial contracted military air. We expect to maximize our throughput of all means of transportation over the next coming days. Again, our focus right now is to maintain security at HK area to continue to expedite flight operations while safeguarding americans and afghan civilians. We’re proud of the professionalism and the skill of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are showing under extraordinary circumstances. H. Kaaya and they are absolutely prepared to to respond and self defend if necessary. Many of us have spent time in Afghanistan over the years and feel a deep sense of connection to the current events. We are focused on the safest evacuation of americans and afghans. Thank you that’s true. Thank you general. Thank you john ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking time today. I’m Gary Reed. I’m the lead for the D. O. D. Crisis action group for Afghanistan for matters pertaining to the relocation of refugees and transportation of our embassy staff americans allies and other partners from Kabul to their onward destinations. Secretary established the Crisis action group in early july and we’ve been working very closely with the Department of State as elite agency since that time uh partnered with the Department of Homeland Security. Our initial focus was to relocate the S. I. V. S. Uh finalize their visas and resettle them into the United States with the help of our non governmental organizations Today. Nearly 2000 afghans have passed through this process joining more than 70,000 that have participated in the S. I. V. Program. Since 2000 and five. Our military has done an outstanding job supporting this effort. Us North Calm and US army North operating predominantly from Fort lee Virginia have provided housing, food, medical treatment, medical screening and other services to these afghans. Our military embrace the opportunity to recognize their contributions to combined operations in Afghanistan by welcome welcoming them in the U. S. As we prepare for even more arrivals. Us North Calm and the U. S. Army are working to create additional capacity to support refugee relocation in the U. S. Including temporary sites under assessment at Fort Bliss texas and Camp McCoy. Wisconsin. There may be other sites identified if services are needed. Additional capacity is needed At this point we’re looking to establish 2,022,000 spaces. We can expand if we need to as with the operation we’ve been supporting at Fort lee persons that come to these locations will have been pre screened by the Department of Homeland Security to enter on condition of full immigration processing once they arrived with this operation underway. But given the urgency of the situation in Kabul, our focus has shifted to supporting movement of our embassy staff, american citizens allies and other partners out of Kabul. Starting on the August on August 14 we began movement of these persons on Department of Defense aircraft providing them transportation that had flown into Kabul delivering our troops and hauling cargo. This is an important point. Um the numbers today are in the hundreds. We certainly have a much greater requirement. We are still in the process of bringing in forces. These aircraft as space is available on the outbound have been taking passengers and of course this has been somewhat disrupted in the last 24 hours. But nonetheless we have transported several 102 countries in the region and align them again with our State Department DHS colleagues for their onward transportation. Yeah, we anticipate picking up the pace provided we can stabilize conditions at Kabul. As described by the general. Our military team in Kabul is working side by side with the ambassador and his staff to coordinate future airlift operations in the coming days. The Department of State and Department of Homeland Security will facilitate initial processing at overseas transit points and prepare for onward movement for all of those transported by the Department of Defense. Thank you. Mhm. Okay we’ll get the questions bob. Thanks question for General Taylor. Okay. Uh General has the US military conducted any airstrikes today or in the last 24 hours or so? And also there’s been some reports of afghan pilots flying their aircraft into other countries. Um Is that happening? And is the us taking any other sort of steps to prevent aircraft or other military equipment from falling into the hands of the taliban? Yeah. First I’ll be the first question on the strikes. Um No no strikes have been conducted in the last 24 hours but uh the commander on the ground continues to maintain that capability if required to do so. The commander has the assets that are available there at HQ and in support from other areas of the region. Um I don’t have information on the second part of the question. Uh but we’ll get back to them. So there’s no no U. S. Action is being taken to prevent equipment from falling into the hands the Taliban by destroying it or anything else? I don’t have uh answered that question. You don’t have any help jim General Taylor Was this a failure of intelligence or planning that led to the scenes we saw at the airport today when the scenes at the airport of the everybody coming out to be shut down. Yeah. What what we know what happened at the airport was that there were a lot of afghans that we’re trying to report it get out of the country? So I don’t think that was a lack of planning as we look at the coordination with those that were responsible uh for securing that. Well look at our mission though as I talked earlier is now that the airfields open is to make sure that it remains open. So like as I said we can continue expediting flights in and out bound but the quick fall of Kabul was that a failure of intelligence? I can’t answer that. And mr Reid um you’re in charge of the S. I. V. S. There are women who fought for the special forces. Um there are reports that the taliban are now knocking on doors going into the homes of those who served in the military. What are you doing to protect them to get them out? Are you in touch with the taliban? And do you have assurances that they’ll be safe? We recognize that beyond the S. I. V. S. There’s additional afghans at risk and they are included within the group of people that uh and time as we get through the americans and initially immediate priority that we have plans in place to support lifting them removed uh transporting them out of the country. On the defense side. Again, it would be a Department of State, homeland Security questions about immigration processing. We recognize the risks that they face and we’re doing everything we can to get this operation underway at scale so we can get through as many as possible under under these very difficult conditions, you communicating with the taliban you have a line of communication. I’m personally not communicating with the taliban but I would imagine there are communications within the diplomatic channels. As we said earlier, gen gentle Mackenzie did meet in Doha with taliban leaders were not going to detail that conversation as I said earlier, but the message was very clearly put to the taliban uh that these operations and our people were not to be attacked or there would be a response. And as you and I speak there has been no attack on our operation or on our people at the airport. To your other question uh would again like to just fill out the mission that the military has right now is to secure the airport to keep operations going uh and to help make sure that we can safeguard the movement of personnel people uh from Kabul to onward destinations. That’s the focus right now the State Department has methods of their own to reach out to people to communicate with them about uh about the process of getting into the queue. And I would let the State Department speak to that. But it’s as I said before, the military mission is very narrowly focused around the airport, making sure we can secure operations there are, I’d like to follow up with you or the general but let me start with you please at the micro fine May to follow up on the previous question the U. S. Military, the Department of Defense always for decades says we plan for everything Clearly whatever you planned for did not get planned for at the airport. We’ve now seen a C17 with more than 600 people sitting on the floor with a pilot making the decision that he would fly them out anyhow. Even though that’s an extraordinary number of people we’ve seen the world has seen all the scenes at the airport. So my two questions are what failed in your planning because you didn’t plan for this. You would not have planned to fly in such dangerous circumstances. And how do you determine where the responsibility lies for this failure? Well first of all Barbara I would take issue with your designation of this operation at the airport as a failure. But let’s get back to that in a second. Uh let’s get back to that in a second. Yes we do plan for all manner of contingencies. This is a planning organization. Um and we do that specifically to try to mitigate risk uh and to try to be ready for unforeseen circumstances. But it’s not a perfect process. Plans are not always perfectly predictive and you uh and as is well known military maxim that plans don’t often survive first contact. Uh and you have to adjust in real time and I think uh when you look at the images out of Kabul. Uh that would have been difficult for anybody to predict. Yes, we did plan on uh, noncombatant evacuation operations as far back as May. There were drills being done here at the pentagon to walk through what different non combatant evacuation operations might look like. There was another one recently done just two weeks ago, a tabletop exercise to again examine what a noncombatant evacuation would look like out of uh Hamid Karzai International Airport. I mean specifically at the airport. Uh and we think that those exercises did prepare us in terms of having the resources forward Secretary forward deployed troops, including marines off of their ship and into kuwait so that they can be more readily available as well as other forces in the region. So a lot of what you’re seeing transpire, the reason we can be so quick With upwards of 6000 troops is because we anticipated the possible need to do this. Now, could we have predicted every single scenario and uh, and every single breach around the perimeter of the airport with only a couple of 1000 troops on the ground. Absolutely. You know, there are, there are changes that happen. So plans are terrific and we take them seriously, but they are not and never have been perfectly predictive when you practice this was one of the scenarios, a complete taliban takeover uh, of the capital there. There was certainly as you do exercises, I don’t want to go into too much detail here on these, but uh, but uh it would certainly be wrong to conclude that the United States military did not view as a distinct possibility uh that the the taliban uh could overrun the country and uh and including Kabul now as we’ve talked about here many times, it happened very fast. Um and one of the things that we couldn’t anticipate and didn’t anticipate was the degree to which Afghan forces capitulated sometimes without a fight. The President said that he did not see that happening. Did you tell the president that you thought it was a possibility the country would be over? We won’t speak to advice and counsel that our leaders here in the pentagon give to the president. What I can tell you is that in in the in the planning that we’ve done and in the exercises and drills we ran we certainly ran them against the possibility that the taliban would make significant gains throughout the country. Yes. Absolutely. Carla speaking of the images we’ve been seeing at the airport, a U. S. Official has told me away that there’s an investigation currently underway about multiple civilian deaths when a C 17 took off from the airport. What more can you tell us about that investigation? And can you confirm that? I can’t confirm that reporting Carlos. So you’re getting information that I don’t have. But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that Commanders would be taking a look at what happened this morning with respect to the c. 17. And I won’t get ahead of that process? There will be you can expect that we will take a look at this to see what happened. Uh and what we can learn from it in the future. That is absolutely consistent. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there was in fact the formal investigation. But I just can’t confirm that right now. Looking at the images was the U. S. Too late to bring in the number of troops that it brought in. Was the decision, did the decision come too late? We float these forces in as fast as we possibly could. And it was aided in fact by the by the prepositioning that was done in previous weeks. Uh I mean you all reported yourselves about the Iwo Jima, the the navy ship from which these marines were based, you know, being extended for a couple of weeks by Secretary Austin. That was a decision he made several weeks ago because it was all part of the contingency planning for the need to maybe do some evacuations to make that even faster. We moved those marines ashore and we saw the benefit now those, those marines were the first ones on scene. So it was something that we absolutely had thought about. And one last question and this can be for you or the general, you spoke from the podium over the last several days many times saying that the Afghan air force was conducting more air strikes against the taliban than the U. S. Was. My question is why was that why didn’t the U. S. Conduct more strikes against the taliban in these final days? Yeah Carl I think monday morning quarterback in here now. I mean isn’t I don’t think helpful exercise but the as we said from a while ago that as our resources and capabilities in the region dwindled because of the drawdown, we were ordered to draw down by the end of august and we were nothing but honest about the speed with which we had to do that because speed is safety. We wanted to make sure we did this quickly. Uh and the drawdown means to draw down and it’s not just about boots on the ground. The drawdown is about capabilities and resources in the region as we wrapped up our advise and assist in combat missions in Afghanistan which meant we had fewer airplanes, fewer strike capabilities in the region as we continue to draw down. And again we were very transparent about the fact that we would conduct airstrikes in support of the afghans where and when feasible fully cognizant of the fact that it wasn’t always going to be feasible in every on every day and in every place. But the the afghan air force is indigenous and they are in the country and they did maintain their presence. And there were days where they flew easily twice as many strikes as as we did. And they were able to often get on scene quicker because they were already there and because they had tangible connections to their troops in the field. It also is a healthy reminder something that I think we forget that in the last year and a half afghans were in the lead of almost all literally all but just about almost all of their operations uh on the ground. I mean they advise and assist mission was still there but they were very much in the lead of their own operations and coordinating with their Air Force Zoe. Um I have a question for Mr Reid. Um You said earlier that your crisis action group for Afghanistan was was set up in a early july the decision of president biden to end the war was taken in mid april. Why did it take so long to create a group to take care of your afghan allies? The Department of Defense enters into this in support of the State Department and the State Department has for many years as you know, executed the S. I. V. Program. The addition of the U. S. Military support to that program was new and it was generated by guidance to try to accelerate and help the process due to the time delays inherent within getting them through. So we were asked by the State Department to provide support to their operation. That’s not a suggestion that that is when S. I. V. S. Became a priority for the government that has been for many years. It was just the contributions that the Defense Department could make using our installations in the United States as an example where we could do this in a very orderly setting, free of distractions without them coming individually or scattering to multiple locations. We could centralize the resources and contribute our resources. Our logistics are our medical personnel. Fort lee Virginia is the center of excellence for army logistics. So it was a good example of how we could use our resources to support a program that we all wanted to see continue and accelerate and help as many folks out as we could because we value what they did for us and we want to be reciprocal in that regard. So do we have to understand that this group was created because of the slowness of the process at the State Department? No that’s not what I said. It is a long process and to the extent that the addition of D. O. D. Resources and support could make it again about bringing them all together. If you’re familiar with the process there’s multiple stages and multiple agencies involved within our system. This gave us because of our resources the ability to have a base with a location. We could bring that together and speed up something that may have otherwise taken weeks into a matter of days and became more economical. We increase the throughput of that process and create capacity to do more. So that’s really the contributions of the Defense Department. I think we need to get into the phones to a little bit. I haven’t done that yet dan Lamont. The Washington post. Thank you John uh to drill down a bit on the on the flights out that we’ve we’ve seen on video my colleagues defense one of reported that were in excess of 600 perhaps 640 people On AC. 17 flying out. And you also took a question this morning and your first briefing and said you try to get back to us on it. There appeared to be two people that fell from that aircraft likely to their death. Can you confirm those things? Thank you. On the on the video footage we’ve all seen of uh something falling off the wing. I don’t have an update for you in terms of uh specific validity of that were obviously uh just as interested in you and and learning more about uh what what happened there. Um And on the on the first question about the the the C 17 with fully loaded again, I don’t have any additional information about that particular aircraft in that particular flight. Uh but uh you know we’ll continue to try to dig down and and see if there’s more information that can be had about that. It’s obviously uh difficult from 8000 miles away to to uh to have perfect knowledge about everything that’s going on on the ground over there. But again, we’re working hard to secure to keep the airport Secure and keep these operations now uh sustained now that they’re they’re back on track zero so much on as you know, I’m from Afghanistan and I’m very upset today because Afghan women didn’t expect that overnight. All the taliban came, they took off my flag, this is my flag and they put their flak. Everybody is absolute, especially women. I forgot my question to me. What do you ask? Where is my President? Former President Ghani. People expected that he bye bye with the people and immediately run away. We don’t know where is he? And we don’t have a President. President biden said that President Ghani, no, he has to fight for those people. They have to do everything and we were able to financially help them. But we don’t have any president. We don’t have anything Afghan people. They don’t know what to do. A woman as a lot of achievement in Afghanistan. I had a lot of achievement. I I lived from the Taliban like 20 years ago now, we go back to the first step again. Do you have any comments? We deserve a president, can he should answer to Afghan people obviously can’t speak for uh Ashraf Ghani or where he is or what his views are. I wouldn’t do that. But let me say with all respect that I understand and we all understand the the anxiety and the fear and the pain that you’re feeling. It’s it’s clear and it’s evident and nobody here at the pentagon is happy about the images that we’ve seen coming out in the last few days. Uh and we’re all mindful of um of the kind of governance, governance that the Taliban is capable of. Um so heartfelt respect to what you’re going through. And and we we understand that uh a lot of us have spent time in Afghanistan. The general mentioned that uh everything that you’re seeing in the last 48 72 hours is personal for everybody here at the pentagon. Uh we we to have invested greatly in Afghanistan and in the progress that women and girls have made politically economically, socially. Uh and and we certainly do understand and we do feel the pain that you’re feeling probably not to the same extent. Uh We uh we’re focused right now on making sure that that we do the best we can for those afghans who helped us. And to Sylvia’s point uh when she was talking to Gary. Yes, the action group that stood up in july but you can go back to the spring and and here the secretary himself talk about uh interpreters and translators and the sacred obligation that we know that we have to them. And so in this moment on this day now that the airport is open again, we are going to be focused on doing what we can to honor that obligation to all those who who helped make all that progress possible. Because because by helping us, they helped us help you. Uh and and we take that very very seriously. And again, I’m sorry for your pain. I truly, truly am. And I know that the general gary share that as well. Megan Mr Reid is that you guys want to make space for 22,000 Afghans. Other helpers to be able to come to the US. There’s about two weeks until all troops are supposed to be off of the ground in Afghanistan who is going to protect that mission into september Assuming that 22,000 people are not going to get out in the next two weeks. And does that mean that there might be an extension of some of these security forces at the airport after that? Well, I can’t speak to the last part, but I can say that our commitment and the Secretary’s task to me is to continue to do everything we can in this department to support this process and as conditions change and and opportunities change, we will do our very best to make whatever resources this department has to contribute to continued success in that regard. Understand it could be very difficult. We don’t know what’s ahead, but we’re going to stay in this as long as it takes, as long as we can contribute. And I would just add making, uh, it’s up to 22. That’s the capacity that we’re looking at at three at these three installations. Um, it doesn’t mean that there are going to be 22,000 people that need that support. We’re just trying to fill out the capacity as best we think we need right now. If, if we have underestimated that capacity, the secretary is fully committed to finding additional locations and installations if we need it. And if we’ve overestimated then to Barbara’s excellent point. We’ve planned, well, we’ve, uh, we’ve, we want to make sure we’re ready. So it’s, it’s a capacity thing of up to 22 were not being predictive that it’s going to actually be 22,000. So is that to say it as many people who can get out in the next two weeks or they’re considering what I can tell you is that over the next two weeks we’re going to be as aggressive as we can and moving as many people as we can. And as you’ve heard me say, once we get the operation up and running well here, we could get Conceivably up to 5000 hours a day, but it’s that’s, that’s seats on airplanes. Not just military airplanes, but commercial and charter airplanes as well. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be that demand signal on the other end. Does that, does that answer your question, Let me go back to the phones here. I haven’t been good about this uhh tara cop. Um thank you for doing this. Um we just reported on the C 17 a separate C 17 that was able to airlift 640 afghans out and learned that that was one of several C seventeen’s that have that number or more aboard. So I was just wondering how is the pentagon or State Department tracking just how many afghans and americans it’s helping assist depart the country and uh how how going forward are you able to track those people to be able to help them as they repatriate elsewhere? So the number of 700 that I gave earlier was the number reported by the Department of State and the the commander on the ground. So the question uh as we continue to go forward, uh that is one of the more important task that we will do is as Department of State continues to provide names of those that will depart, the military will continue to ensure we have uh the aircraft, whether it’s military or civilian aircraft to get them out and continue to report forward? Yeah. Dude, Is a lot like this question. What is the determining factor here, is that August 31 or is it the completion of the mission to evacuate diplomats? U. S. Citizens vulnerable afghanis. It’s the mission is to evacuate our embassy personnel uh american citizens uh as well as afghans who we can help. That’s the mission set. The time frame that we’re on right now is to is to is to do that complete that mission. Bye August 31. And If we’re at 5000 and I’ve seen some estimates that go north of 5000 a day depending on how many stories you can fly. And obviously that’s dependent on a lot of factors including weather. Uh we believe that there with that capacity, should air operations be able to go uninterrupted that we can meet those. We can meet that goal by the end of the month beyond August 31. It’s just too difficult to speculate and we wouldn’t want to get ahead of uh of decisions that haven’t been made yet. Where are head, head is right down right now on getting the air operations going again. Getting getting airplanes in with troops and getting people on those same airplanes as they head out. And then once the troop flow is done uh to be continued to continue to flow in military aircraft uh empty to pick up people and go out. But again our focus is on getting as much done as we can as quickly as we can. Uh Yes the date august 31st is is when the president has told us to be done this drawdown and this movement, I won’t speculate about what it’s gonna look like. Beyond that. Plans for helping people get to the airport right now as I said before, our mission military mission is to secure the airport uh to safeguard air traffic and people and and the flow at the airport. And that’s that’s what we’re focused on right now. Of course. General taylor, can you tell us a little bit more? Herbie said that there hadn’t been any taliban attacks but there were a couple of security incidents earlier in the day. Were those taliban, these armed fighters that the U. S. Hit? No we can’t confirm that those were taliban. We do know that there was some random shooting that came in during that piece but not confirmed to be taliban. Have there been any other security incidents like that? Never been any americans wounded. There haven’t been any other major security instance other than what we saw last night. There was a report of one us wounded but superficial and already back to duty shot was individuals. I don’t know that detail and that was wounded. And then can you I’m not sure who this is for but I’m still unclear on the numbers. So there’s been 700 since let’s take it from august 14th until right now. There have been 700 S ivy candidates. How many americans have been moved? How many aircraft have left taking people out? How many total people have been moved as part of this evacuation operation so far. Yeah. So I can give you the answer for the S. I. B. So in the last 48 We know that we had 700 out on flights That gives us that total of 2000 CVS since we began operations. But how many Americans have there been Americans moved out on the work at the embassy? Right. And other Afghans who are not as many candidates as well have been trying to get a sense of understanding ongoing for 48 hours I hate to say but you only moved 700 total people in 48 hours. Well first things is to remind everyone the lives that we’re talking about were on the charter flights that the State Department had chartered. And we have been running though since 29 July we I think 10 flight 10 arrived overnight last night, 265 uh none of them went to fort lee, they already had their electronic visas and they’re being processed by state the outflow of americans and embassy staff as it’s in the hundreds. I don’t have an exact number for you but just to reinforce this is sort of available space on aircraft that are coming in configured not ideal to just load up completely there’s equipment back halls and other things that are occurring on these aircraft. So think of it as a space available With those aircraft going out and as Mr Kirby said as soon as we get all the forces in you will have aircraft coming in solely for ramping of these evacuations. Getting up to the 20 or 30 a day getting you up to 5000 per day? But as of now, it’s still in the hundreds of people who as part of this evacuation mission in the hundreds right now. And we talked about that earlier. You got time for just a couple more guys. Like, can you tell how were the U. S. Is going to keep Afghanistan from becoming another terrorist safe haven since arguably we’re in a worse position than we were pre 9 11. We’ve talked about this to mike, we have a robust over the rising counterterrorism capabilities already in the region. Uh we can fly from ships at sea, we can fly from bases in the region. I mean, just in terms of the uh support, we were able to give uh two the afghans, uh And just the airstrikes that we did in support of them. I mean, there were multiple sorties per day, uh sometimes several strikes, sometimes as many as 10 to a dozen per day. Uh so we’ve got the capability and the capacity and we continue to talk, we continue to talk to partners in the region to see if we can explore additional options that are closer to Afghanistan. But you’ve heard the Secretary say this many times. There’s not a scrap of the earth that we can’t hit if uh if we don’t need to now, um is it more difficult to do counterterrorism strikes over the rising, you bet, um, uh, do you have to travel more distances yet? Could it take more time? Yes, but it’s not like we haven’t done this before. And if you look at, if you look at other places around the world, uh, we where we execute over the rise in counterterrorism, it is possible it is effective. Um, and we believe that uh, our intelligence apparatus, um, and the networks we have in the region now are far more mature than they were in 2001. Uh, and we believe that we can execute effective over the rising counterterrorism capabilities going forward. Doesn’t mean that we are going to try to improve that. We absolutely will. I got just time for one more. I’ll go to Tony for General taylor. I want to go back to the question though. They, the afghan national security forces collapsed quicker than anticipated. What was anticipated? I asked you because you’ve been there, you, you said you had a deep emotional connection to the events on the ground, Roughly? billion dollars has been spent 66,000 of these great people killed? According to the cigar. Can you give a sense broadly, why do you think they seem to have collapsed quicker than expected? I think as mr Kirby said earlier and others that the anticipation of the lack possibly of action by uh, some of the afghan leaders, I think is uh, one of the areas uh, that we look are continuing to look at the afghan military and public leaders military, uh in some of the political. But really as we look at what were the actions or lack of actions at the The military level throughout the country is what we’re looking at right now, because $83 billion dollars people are gonna say that was wasted. What do you think? What do you respond to someone who does not follow you closely? I know that we will continue to look to to find out and dig deep into the why we’re at where we are today. Thanks everybody. We gotta get going appreciate it.