Sneaky Unicorns (previously known as Scouts) not only accurately reveal all of the enemies forces, they will also be able to use the power of love and friendship to reveal the location of the enemy hiding place - hooray!.Unicorns!įrom now on, all scout and cavalry units will be replaced with powerful and mystical Unicorn units.All Unicorn units have the ability to fly over walls, and are immune to attacks from all non-Unicorn units! The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Spring is here - and with the magic of spring, comes the magic of. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. SHAPIRO: NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Many hundreds of pages and I'm sure looking forward to reading them. So when do they report? In about four years. Well, Ari, Congress already set up an Afghan war commission to study all aspects of the war. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York, said Congress has to look at the entire 20 years in Afghanistan. And as you said, some Democrats say this all goes beyond that chaotic withdrawal period.īOWMAN: Right. How long do they stay? What if they come under fire? Do you send more troops in? So that 20-year American presence finally came to an end. One senior officer told me, in talking with the president, we never had a good argument for maintaining a troop presence. But General Milley said those American troops would be in open warfare with the Taliban, and, of course, the Biden administration decided against keeping any U.S. They wanted to keep some 2,500 troops there to keep working with the Afghan military, shore it up, make sure the Taliban upheld their part of the agreement. SHAPIRO: But both generals wanted the Biden administration to keep American forces there longer, despite the Taliban agreement?īOWMAN: That's right. The Afghan government fell, and by then, the evacuation was, they said, extremely difficult. That decision came too late, said Milley. Finally, there was a decision by the State Department to leave, which came the following month, in the middle of August. military and the contractors, NATO, etc., that that embassy would be untenable.īOWMAN: And Generals Milley and McKenzie said the embassy was dragging its feet on an evacuation plan. MARK MILLEY: It was also our assessment at the time that keeping an embassy open in a war zone, which Afghanistan was, and to do that without the presence of the U.S. General Milley thought that was not a good idea. So obviously, you had to have troops there to protect the diplomats. But the administration agreed with the State Department to keep the embassy open. citizens - before the Taliban were able to sweep through most of the country. So what did the generals say about advice that the administration rejected?īOWMAN: Well, the generals said they wanted everyone to leave in early July - the troops, NATO, American diplomats, U.S. SHAPIRO: But as Republicans kept pointing out, the withdrawal took place on President Biden's watch. So the endgame in Afghanistan, they say, was more than just a few days in August. And the military was not involved in those talks. troops and approved a deal with the Taliban that called for a withdrawal of all U.S. One Democratic lawmaker called it a, quote, "highly politicized hearing." And other Democrats pointed out that, listen, it was President Trump who reduced the number of U.S. Some of the family members were there with pictures of their loved ones, and two retired generals appeared - former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and Frank McKenzie, who oversaw the region at the time. And if you remember, 13 American service members lost their lives in a suicide attack outside the Kabul Airport around this time. Republicans like House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul wanted to hammer the Biden administration for this chaotic withdrawal. And much of this has to do with this being a presidential election year. What was new in today's hearing?īOWMAN: Well, Ari, not a lot. SHAPIRO: This exit has been well reported, well investigated. NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman spent years reporting from Afghanistan and followed that testimony today on the Hill. Well, today on Capitol Hill, two retired senior officers recalled those days, including the advice they gave and the advice that was rejected by the Biden administration. SHAPIRO: Sound there of the chaos unfolding at Kabul Airport as crowds surged to get out on U.S. First, let's turn to Afghanistan in August 2021.
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