Milley also had to defend himself against charges that he deliberately sought to undermine Donald Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief out of fear that the former president would launch a foreign war as a diversion to distract attention from his election loss in November. If the US had stayed on into September to try to evacuate more people, he said: “We would have been at war with the Taliban again,” requiring an extra 20,000 troops to clear Kabul of Taliban fighters and retake Bagram air base near the capital, which the US had abandoned in July. Milley said it was the advice of the military leadership to stick to the end of August deadline to complete the departure, which the Taliban had accepted. But when the last soldier left on a flight on 30 August, there were still believed to be more than a hundred Americans – most if not all dual nationals who had delayed their decision to leave until it was too late. In his 19 August interview, Biden had said that US forces would stay until all American citizens had been evacuated. “This country doesn’t want generals figuring out what orders we’re going to accept and do or not. “It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken,” he said, staring straight at Cotton. Milley adamantly rejected a suggestion by Republican senator Tom Cotton he should resign because that advice was rejected. “No one said that to me that I can recall,” Biden told ABC News on 19 August. None could explain Joe Biden’s claim in an interview last month that he had not received any such advice. Milley, Austin and McKenzie all confirmed that when the Biden administration was considering its policy on Afghanistan in its first few months in office, they had believed a small US force of about 2,500 should remain. It was a long and very difficult day in Congress for the Biden administration, which has been trying to move past the reputational damage caused by the sudden fall of Kabul last month and subsequent scramble to evacuate Americans and allies, which left tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans behind. It remains to be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power, or if the country will further fracture into civil war.” “I have no illusions who we are dealing with. “We must remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist organization and they still have not broken ties with al-Qaida,” he added. “It is obvious the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted,” Milley said, noting “the Taliban is now in power in Kabul.”
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