Got it. You were pro forever war with the Taliban, and you disagreed with ending our mission in Afghanistan. How many more young American lives were you willing to sacrifice?
"I’ve never been more humbled and inspired. They are rightfully proud of what they accomplished and the lives they saved in such a short period of time.
The reason that our troops were able to get there so quickly is because we planned for just such a contingency. We began thinking about the possibilities for a non-combatant evacuation as for are back as the spring. By late April two weeks after the president’s decision, military planners had crafted a number of evacuation scenarios.
Secretary Austin: (
14:26)
In mid-May, I ordered CENTCOM to make preparations for a potential non-combatant evacuation operation. And two weeks later, I began pre-positioning for horses in the region to include three infantry battalions.
On the 10th of August, we ran another tabletop exercise around a non-combatant evacuation scenario. We wanted to be ready, and we were. By the time that the State Department called for the NEO, significant numbers of additional forces had already arrived in Afghanistan, including leading elements of the 24th Marine expeditionary unit who were already on the ground in Kabul. Before that weekend was out another 3000 or so, ground troops had arrived, including elements of the 82nd Airborne. To be clear, those first two days were difficult. We all watched with alarm the images of Afghans rushing the runway and our aircraft. We all remember the scene of confusion.
Secretary Austin: (
15:32)
Outside the airport, but within 48 hours, our troops restored order and the process began to take hold. Our soldiers, airmen and Marines and partnership with our allies, our partners, and our State Department colleagues secured the gates, took control of the airport operations and set up a processing system for the tens thousands of people that they would be manifesting onto airplanes.
Secretary Austin: (
15:55)
They and our commanders exceeded all expectations. We planned to evacuate between 70,000 and 80,000 people. They evacuated more than 124,000 people. We planned to move between 5,000 and 9,000 people per day, and on average, they move slightly more than 7,000 people per day. On military aircraft alone, we flew more than 387 sorties, averaging nearly 23 per day. And at the height of this operation, an aircraft was taking off every 45 minutes and not a single sortie was missed for maintenance, fuel or logistical problems. It was the largest airlift conducted in US history and it was executed in just 17 days. Was it perfect? Of course not.
