Top military leaders confirmed in a Senate hearing Tuesday they recommended earlier this year that the U.S. keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and that they believed withdrawing those forces would lead to the collapse of the Afghan military.
Why it matters: Biden denied last month that his top military advisers wanted troops to remain in Afghanistan, telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "No one said that to me that I can recall."
Driving the news: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, are testifying before Congress for the first time since the withdrawal.
- Milley and McKenzie declined to discuss specific conversations with Biden but told senators it was their "personal opinion" that the U.S. keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
- Milley stressed in his testimony: "I am required and the military commanders are required to give our best military advice, but the decision-makers are not required to follow that advice."
The latest: "The war on terror is not over, and the war in Afghanistan is not over," McKenzie told senators — again contradicting assertions by Biden.
Highlights: ...
- On the chaotic evacuation: Austin said in his opening statement that military leaders began planning for a non-combatant evacuation of Kabul as early as the spring, and that this is the only reason U.S. troops were able to start the operation so quickly when the Taliban captured the city. "Was it perfect? Of course not," Austin acknowledged.
- On abandoning Bagram Air Base: Austin told senators that keeping Bagram, the center of U.S. operations in Afghanistan for two decades, would have required an additional 5,000 troops