Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, brief the media at the Pentagon, August 18, 2021.

Transcript

Mhm Okay, good afternoon everybody. And it will start in just a few minutes late. Uh we are time constrained today. So um I’ll pass it right over to the Secretary for opening comments. I will be moderating please uh limit follow ups if you can. Mr. Secretary, thanks john, I’m going to speak briefly and then turn it over to the Chairman for an operational update. Let me start by saying that we remain laser focused right now on Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and I’m doing everything that we can to continue evacuating Americans allies, afghans who have worked alongside us and and also other courageous afghans at special risk. And to that end, I’m prioritizing three key concerns. First, the safety and security of our people and the people that were trying to evacuate. As the chairman will brief you, the final elements of additional military forces continue to flow into Kabul With about 4500 in place as we speak. They are trained and equipped to defend themselves and their operations. There have been no hostile interactions with the Taliban and our lines of communication with Taliban commanders remain open as they should be. My second focuses maintaining security at the airport itself in concert with forces from our allies. Our troops have set up defensive positions around the airport and the airport is able to function safely. Now. We don’t take this for granted and I continue to be in daily contact with General Mackenzie and commanders on the ground to make sure that they have what they need to keep it safe. My third area of focus, of course is the pace increasing the flow of aircraft and people out of Kabul And we’ve flown out several 1000 since 15 August and our goal is to be able to increase our capacity every day going forward. And as we build out this capacity, we’re working hand in glove with the State Department which is leading the whole of government effort to notify and process American citizens who are leaving and to urgently identify and process afghan applicants as well. We have dispatched small military teams to two of the airport’s gates to assist state the State Department counselor efforts as they evaluate and process individuals seeking entry and we expect to be able to augment that capability in the coming days. This is truly a team effort across the inter-agency and throughout all of this are U. S. Service members are making exceptional efforts under challenging circumstances and showing their humanity and their compassion. So I want to thank them for their skill and their professionalism. It’s not lost on me that even as we conduct this very important mission, we also continue to help our fellow Americans deal with a new surge in the pandemic and the citizens of Haiti deal with an aftermath the aftermath of an earthquake. Let me also thank General Mackenzie and Rear Admiral vase Lee, who is the commander of US forces forward And major general Donahue of the 82nd Airborne Division and Brigadier General Sullivan for their leadership at this critical time. It is making an enormous difference. They know as I do, that there’s a lot of work to be done yet. Now all of this is very personal for me this is a war that I fought in and lead. I know the country, I know the people and I know those who fought alongside me. As I said, we had we have a moral obligation to help those who helped us. And I feel the urgency deeply. So I want to end with the word for the force in our military. I know that these are difficult days for those who lost loved ones in Afghanistan and for those who carry the wounds of war, especially now we mourn those who made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan. Let me say to their families and loved ones, our hearts are with you And the US military stands as one to honor those we’ve lost. Now Afghan war veterans aren’t some monolithic. I’m hearing strong views from all sides on on this issue and that’s probably the way that it should be. What’s important is that each of us will work our way through this in our own way and we need to respect that and we need to give one another the time and space to help do it. Our greatest asset as a nation is the extraordinary men and women who volunteer to keep us all safe and their families, we honor your service. We understand your sacrifice and we will never forget it. And so with that I’m gonna turn it over to General Milley who can talk about where we stand operationally. Good afternoon everyone and thank you Mr. Secretary. What I’d like to do is give you an overall situation update as of today. And what our next steps are currently, the United States military is focused on the specific mission of conducting a noncombatant evacuation operation from Afghanistan. This is likely to be probably the second largest neo conducted by the United States. Our key tasks or to establish and maintain security at the Kabul International airport, defend the airport from attack, evacuate all American citizens from Afghanistan who desire to leave this country, evacuate any third country, national or allies and partners as designated by the Secretary of State, evacuate personnel with State Department designated special immigrant visas and evacuate any other evacuees that the State Department designates the president. United States made a decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan on April 14th. Since that date, we conducted a deliberate and responsible drawdown of U. S. Forces to less than 1000 with a specific task of securing the U. S. Embassy in our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. Since then, the security situation rapidly degraded today. The situation is still very dangerous, very dynamic and very fluid and all of us can be proud of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines are executing this mission. They are currently in harm’s way. That needs to be our focus. There’ll be plenty of time to do A. R. S. But right now our mission is to secure that airfield, defend that airfield and evacuate all those who have been faithful to us. There’ll be many postmortems on this topic. But right now is not that time. Right now there are troops at risk and we have the United States military and we fully intend to successfully evacuate all American citizens who want to get out of Afghanistan. All American citizens who want to get out of Afghanistan, They are priority number one. In addition, we intend to evacuate. Those who’ve been supporting us for years and we’re not going to leave them behind and we will get out as many as possible. Our troops in Kabul are taking high risk to accomplish that mission. Every minute these troops are on the ground making difficult decisions with incredible skill, incredible bravery and incredible valor. Currently, the security situation at the airport is stable. However, there are threats, were closely monitoring those at any moment. They could happen. We can identify them if we identify them, we will take immediate military action without hesitation and according to the rules of engagement and the Taliban and every other organization that country knows it. The Taliban are in and around Kabul right now but they are not interfering with our operations through the State Department. The Taliban are facilitating the safe passage to the airport for American citizens that is U. S. Passport holders. We also have a risk. As you saw the other day of unarmed innocent civilians massing on the airfield became a safety hazard to our airplanes or air crews and also to themselves. And we currently have that situation under control inside the airfield. As many other risks out there and the troops are dealing with those every single day in this volatile environment which can and likely will change rapidly. Let me make one comment on the intelligence because I’m seeing all over the news that there are warnings of a rapid collapse. I have previously said from this podium and in sworn testimony before Congress that the intelligence clearly indicated multiple scenarios were possible. One of those was an outright Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of the Afghan security forces and the government. Another was a civil war and a third was a negotiated settlement. However, the time frame of a rapid collapse that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure, there was nothing that I or anyone else saw That indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days, Central Command submitted a variety of plans that were briefed and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary Defense and the President. These plans are coordinated synchronized and rehearsed to deal with these various scenarios. One of those contingencies is what we are executing right now. As I said before, there’s plenty of time to do a RS and key lessons learned and to delve into these questions with great detail. But right now is not that time. Right now we have to focus on this mission because we have soldiers at risk And we also have American citizens and Afghans who supported us for 20 years also at risk. This is personal. We’re going to get them out and we in uniform have a deep commitment to this mission. Now let me give you an operational update the security situation as I said, is currently secure at this time and since 12 august we’ve deployed 12 or correction to the United States marine battalions, one Battalion from the Minnesota National Guard. All three of those were pre-positioned in theater centcom A. R. As part of the contingency planning. In addition to that, we alerted Marshall and deployed the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division Consisting of three Airborne Infantry Battalions and Associated Enablers. And finally there was an infantry battalion from the 10th mountain Division securing the U. S. Embassy in Kabul. In addition we are operating on the ground with a variety of special operations forces that in combination with the ground forces. We have some of the best soldiers and marines the world has ever seen In total. There are 20 us maneuver companies currently on the ground With about 4500 troops and the flow continues. The president has authorized, as you all know, up to 6000 on top of them is the United States, Navy and Air Force. We have multiple squadrons of F eighteens, A V eight’s, F 16 A C one thirties, B 52 S and M two nines. We have a significant amount of rotary wing aviation on the ground including attack and lift helicopters. In addition, we are working with our allies and partners. There are British infantry rifle companies along with British special forces on the ground working with us. There’s also Turkish security force and there are other international Special operations forces. This force is capable of extracting a significant amount of people on U. S. Air Force aircraft. Right now we’re averaging about 20 sorties of C17s Every 24 hours. We have the capability to significantly increase that throughput as the Department of State makes evacuees available. As the secretary said, We’ve already evacuated approximately 5000 people and we intend to increase it. In addition to the military airflow, there’s a variety of commercial and charter flights taking out evacuees on behalf of various other countries in NGos. The military side of the airfield is open and the civilian side of the airfield is also open and we intend to keep them both open for military commercial and charter flights. one Caveat on the civilian side, however, is that the air frames have to come in by visual flight rules only and a note um, is going out to all the air crews. The State Department is working to rapidly increase the flow of passengers available to get out on the aircraft and we are fully supporting them with our military personnel at the entrance gates and this highly dynamic environment, There’s a number of unexpected challenges that can and likely will continue to occur. And we rely heavily on a talent, skill and training of our troops. We’ve got great people across all the ranks and services out there right now on this mission. In addition to Afghanistan, which is clearly our main effort, we’re also conducting humanitarian assistance operations in Haiti In the aftermath of a 7.2 mag magnitude earthquake with a significant loss of life on the West Coast were fighting wildfires and we continue to conduct covid support and other operations around the world. As we reflect on these difficult and challenging times. Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine coast Guardsman was fought Or conducted operation in Afghanistan. Almost 800,000 should hold their head high For more than 20 years. We have prevented an attack on the US homeland. 2448 lost our lives. 20722 were wounded in action and many others suffered the unseen wounds of war to each of them. I want you to know personally that your service mattered as the secretary said for both. He and I this is personal and I know it’s personal for each and every one of you, thank you. Okay, we’ll go to questions bob. Thank you john I have a question for you two gentlemen. If I may Mr. Secretary, you mentioned the urgency of ramping up the face of the evacuation. Uh so you have a safe passage agreement with the Taliban. But in fact in some cases, American citizens afghans who are at risk or who are being advised to go to the airport unable to get into the airport because of Taliban checkpoints and so forth. Uh So are you considering other ways that you can get around that problem by for example, sending forces out beyond the airport to collect people and bring them them into the airport. If I may ask General Milley with the rapid collapse of the afghan forces, there’s large amounts of weaponry that are kind of out there now that were either surrendered or abandoned by the afghan forces or otherwise captured by the Taliban. Are there ways you can, are you considering ways that you might destroy some of that equipment uh to avoid it falling into the Taliban’s hands? Thanks bob. In terms of whether or not we intend to send forces outside of of the airfield to collect up American citizens or afghans who are special immigrant visa applicants. Uh the forces that we have are are focused on security of the airfield and you know, how important that is. And you know, what happens uh If we if we lose uh the ability to provide that security. Uh and so I don’t want to detract from that. And we have to make sure that we can not only secure the airfield, but as the chairman said, defend it as well because there are a number of threats uh still in the in the environment. Uh I certainly don’t want to do anything to make the air feel less safe and and we won’t do that. But we will continue to coordinate deconflict with with the Taliban and make sure that uh those folks, those those people that need to get to the airfield have the right credentials uh to to ensure passage. And and the Taliban has been checking those credentials and if they have them, they have allowed them to pass so on the equipment. But we obviously have capabilities. But I’d prefer not to discuss any operations other than what we’re doing right now in order to get their evacuation out and get that complete. And then there’ll be another time when we can discuss future operations, huh? Barb I would like to press both of you in the same points. General Milley, you say in your statement that one of your tasks is to evacuate all American citizens from Afghanistan who desire to leave. There are Americans clearly all over Kabul. There may be Americans in other parts of the country. How can the U. S. The pentagon live up to that task of evacuating all Americans because we continue to see the violence just outside the airport. And how would you get them around the country unless you go get them? Well, two things, Barbara one is State Department, as you know, as I said, is working with the Taliban to facilitate safe passage of American citizens, U. S. Passport holders to the airport. Um and um that’s the primary means. And under the current conditions, uh that’s the primary effort. We have capability to do other things if necessary. Well can I ask you what that means? Because you also said there were international special forces there that have the capability to extract. And those words suggest very clearly in the military realm, you would go get people. Well that would be a policy decision. And if directed we have capabilities that can execute whatever were directed her. Thank you. And I would draw a distinction bar between extracting uh someone in an in extremist condition or circumstance versus going out and collecting up large numbers of American citizens. You have the capability to go out and collect Americans. We don’t have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people. Bar we go ahead for both of you. If I could You have 5000 U. S. Military personnel on the ground securing the area? You have small groups potentially Taliban fighters outside there for holding up potentially the second largest neo that could be undertaken. You have the capability to get there. But how do you get those people inside so that they can actually get on those planes? And both of you have served in major command roles inside Afghanistan? Did you not see the possibility that the Afghan security forces were not up to this fight? Um We continue to work with with the State Department uh officials on the ground uh to improve uh the procedures uh you know at the entry points to make sure that we can speed up the process of getting people in and move them onward and and so a state is deploying more uh consular officers to be able to help with that as we stated her as I stated earlier, we’re going to push more military assistance down to the entry points to facilitate uh these efforts, but We’re really working hard uh to get as many people through as possible. And quite frankly we’re not, it’s obvious we’re not close to where we want to be in terms of getting the numbers through. So we’re gonna work that 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we’re gonna get everyone that we can possibly evacuate evacuated and I’ll do that as long as we possibly can until the clock runs out or we run out of capability. Uh and also about the Afghan security forces? Did you feel that they were ever up to this fight? Or did you not see this coming, that they were not up to the what stood behind this podium and said that the Afghan security forces had the capacity and by that, I mean, they had the training, the size, the capability to defend their country. This comes down to an issue of will and leadership. Um and no, I did not. Nor did anyone else see a collapse of an army that size in 11 days address. Thank you. 31st. Is the ended at what point does the military need to start thinking about and carrying out its own retrograde to meet that deadline? And secondly, do you believe, or do you regret not starting the evacuation of bitter or even by a day or two, to get ahead of the curve? So that’s a great question. At what point do we start thinking about having to retrograde our own capabilities? Uh That’s uh that’s actually the point before we put them in there. Uh We know that we got to have the right mix of capabilities on the on the ground. Uh We don’t want to put uh excessive uh materials on the ground that they’re not relevant to what we’re doing. Uh And uh and we have to develop a detailed plan uh to to uh retrograde our equipment and our people and synchronize that plan with our efforts to get as many people out as fast as we can uh you know with the time that we have available so that that that work is uh uh it’s something that we started thinking about very early on and that’s something that will continue to think about and develop detailed plans for and regretting not starting the evacuation even a few days earlier. Who’s that for injuries? Either one What, you know, we make plans for a number of things and and clearly as chairman pointed out, uh we uh as we did detailed planning throughout, we recognize that there might be a point in time when we have to conduct a Neil. So we positioned all the all the right forces in theatre to be able to do that. We put forces on standby in the United States to support that. And of course uh you know, we we also did uh were in support of the of the state led S. I. V. Process I. Ve applicant process throughout. So in terms of you know, doing everything that we could as at the at the right time, I think I think we have been been pretty prudent in terms of thinking ahead and planning for contingencies and we’re executing uh a one of those plans right now. Holy this question is for both of you and I like for both of you to answer. Um It seems like I know we keep harping on the same thing, but it feels like the video is not matching the audio right now. If boring, it seems to me like barring a lobotomy by the Taliban, you have three pathways ahead of you. Uh One, you can expand the perimeter and establish a quarter into Kabul to get our afghan allies out. Two, you can extend the August 31 deadline up withdrawing or three. You can just leave the tens of thousands of Afghans who helped us over the past 20 years behind. Which one is it going to be? First of all? As I said, Helene, we’re gonna evacuate everybody that we can physically possibly evacuate. And we’ll conduct these uh this process for as long as we possibly can, we will continue to deconflict issues with with the Taliban. And we will stay focused on securing uh the the airfield. We cannot afford to either not defend that airfield or or not have an airfield that secure where we have hundreds or thousands of civilians that can access uh the airfield at will and put our forces at risk. But that doesn’t answer the question. I mean, you’re still saying you’re focused on the airfield. These people can’t get into the airfield. Well, we’re gonna do everything we can to continue to try to deconflict and and create uh passage ways for them to get to the airfield. I don’t have the capability to go out and and extend operations currently into uh into uh Kabul. And where do you take that? I mean, how far can you extend into Kabul and uh and how long does it take to flow those forces in to be able to do that. So it sounds like you’re saying this depends on diplomacy with the Taliban. That’s it. That’s our only option is getting them to agree to do this. Well let me add something here. Helene, we got a couple of uh entry control points set up. Um North one east one and a third one at Abbey Gate. Uh They’re currently man with consular officers Marines has put this all part of the perimeter messages have gone out by various means of communication from the State Department to American citizens and others and they’re being told to go to those gates right now we’re processing it about I think the last report is about 100 20 130 an hour, something like that at the north, about 343 150 an hour, something like that at the South gate. So right now there’s a steady flow of people um Now as that goes on I think those numbers will continue to grow and as those messages go out um and I would tell you that for the American citizens passport holders uh the Taliban and the State Department working out of facility. I got it but they’re working out a facilitation measures so those numbers are likely to grow for the others. Uh State Department is still working through exactly getting the procedures for uh for the evacuees to get to the airfield. Well get john Defense Secretary Austin. How many US taxpayer funded military aircraft have been flown out of the country. And what are you doing to get those back? We’ve heard of Afghan pilots taking those planes to third countries. And General Milley, you talk about the intelligence reports and you said there wasn’t anything suggesting 11 days that the Kabul would fall. But you do mention there were some reports suggesting it could fall apart in weeks if so. Why did you abandon the Bagram airfield? Why did U. S. Military pullout given the uncertainty? Yeah. Good. Uh Jenn in terms of uh the aircraft that have been flown out that you that you mentioned earlier, I have received reports of a number of aircraft that were flown into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Exactly how many? I don’t have firm rumbles on in terms of what we’re doing about them currently. Uh Right now Jenn we’re focused on the airfield and getting people out safely. And so we’re going to take that issue up at a later date and we’re going to continue to try to gain greater fidelity on the issue as well. And I’m your question Barbara securing Barbara, you know Big Bar Grammys, you’ve been there many times. Security bargain is a is a significant level of military effort and forces uh And it would also require external support from the afghan security forces are task given to us that the our task was to protect the embassy uh in order for the embassy personnel uh to continue to function with the council service and all that. Uh if we were to keep both problem and the embassy going uh that would be a significant number of military forces That would have exceeded what we had or stayed the same or exceeded what we had. So I had to collapse one of the other. Uh and a decision was made. The proposal was made from centcom commander the commander on the ground scotty miller to go ahead and collapse by Graham. That was all brief and approved. And we estimated that the risk of going out of Kailua where the risk of going out of Bagram about the same. So going to college is uh, was estimated to be the better tactical solution in accordance with the mission set that were given and in accordance With getting the troops down to about a 600 600 700 Number. Okay, we got time for two more and I haven’t got to the phones at all. So go to dan them off from Washington post. Yes. Thank thank you general. Just to follow up on the bottom versus hk a question. Each car has a single runway with the commercial airport making it much more difficult to defend that runway. We’ve already seen that this week, Bagram has two runways. It would have been a lot easier to protect people Once inside. Is there any thought of retaking Bagram in order to expedite this evacuation? And if not why not? Thank you. Um I won’t do that. Good question. Great question. But I’m not gonna discuss branches and Sequels off of our current operation. I’ll just leave it at that. Okay. And I think the last one for today will go to you court General Milley. You keep saying that no one expected a collapse of the Afghan government and military in 11 days. But the reality is the Taliban offensive began weeks ago. They were threatening Kandahar a month ago already. So the question is if you both think you had such a moral obligation to the afghans afghans who supported the military and State Department For 20 years. Should you have pushed harder when the Taliban offensive began to get these people out and they see us, they may not be in this situation that they’re in right now. And then also if there is this US military Taliban deconfliction process that’s going on right now, Have you been asking them to allow the afghans through? And have they as the Taliban denied that that request? Is is that why there’s not some effort the State Department put out a embassy put out a statement today saying that there was us couldn’t provide any safe passage for these afghans. Is that because the Taliban won’t allow that in his deconfliction. There’s a uh it’s a pretty, it’s a very dynamic environment as you would imagine. And of course there there have been things that have occurred that uh, that you know, we do hear reports of people getting turned away from from by checkpoints. Uh we’ve gone back and tried to and and reinforced to the Taliban that if they have credentials, they need to be allow through. And so that’s working better than it was. And and quite frankly, we have uh, you know, the major issue right now is process processing the people who are there uh as as fast as we possibly can. Uh it’s not a dearth of people, you know, getting there. It’s just uh being able to move the folks that are there through. Uh, so that so that we can get them on aircraft, but there have been some, some unfortunate incidents that I’ve been uh, I’ve learned about and uh, and we continue to work to try to deconflict and make sure that there is safe passage for the people that are trying to get to the airport, Have you asked the Taliban or has the military asked the Taliban to allow these afghans through? And they’ve declined. We continue to work that yes, we have, we have gone back and emphasize that that, that uh people who are trying to get to the airport and have the have the uh, the right credentials need to be allowed through right now, the airport represents safety to a lot of these people. As the Taliban are in Kabul, they’re worried that the longer they wait to get there is a secure airport even if it means they wait there several days to get on a flight. So that’s why there’s this you know this for notices um to get them through. And then also if you could also just the question of should you have pushed harder when it was clear that this Taliban offensive was gaining momentum a month ago down towards Kandahar and other places. Well like I said up front there’s gonna be plenty of time for a ours right now. Focus on the mission focused on these people getting out American citizens, the S. I. V. S, others afghans at risk. Uh there’s gonna be plenty of time to talk about regrets and pushed harder and all these other kinds intel assessment etcetera, plenty of time to us right now is not the time. Thanks guys, we’re gonna have to go appreciate your time. Thank you so much