这是自所有美国军队从阿富汗撤军以来，他们首次在国会露面阿富汗，国家最高军事领导人坦率地向立法者承认他们有推荐给乔·拜登总统美国应该在那里保持驻军，这似乎与他的说法相矛盾。
参谋长联席会议主席马克·米利将军和美国中央司令部司令弗兰克·麦肯齐将军的证词与拜登今年早些时候对美国广播公司新闻记者乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯的评论不一致，后者称他的军事指挥官不建议保留一支剩余部队。
这一消息是在参议院军事委员会为期6个小时的听证会上披露的。在听证会上，米莉还指出，美国在阿富汗的军事任务是“一次战略失败”，国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀承认，是时候承认美国在阿富汗的20年军事任务中的一些“令人不安的真相”了。
以下是一些关键要点:
军事指挥官希望在阿富汗保留至少2500名士兵
尽管米莉和麦肯齐表示，他们不会透露与拜登私下谈话的内容，但两位将军都提出了自己的个人观点，他们表示这些观点与他们的建议相吻合。
“我的评估回到了1920年秋天，并在整个过程中保持一致，即我们应该保持2500的稳定状态，可能会反弹到3500，”米莉告诉阿肯色州的共和党参议员汤姆·科顿。
麦肯齐说:“我建议我们在阿富汗维持2500人的兵力，我还在2020年秋初建议我们当时维持4500人，这是我个人的看法。
将军们的声明与拜登在接受美国广播公司记者采访时所说的不一致采访8月18日。
“没有人告诉——你的军事顾问没有告诉你，”不，我们应该只保留2500名士兵。在过去的几年里，情况一直很稳定。我们能做到。我们能继续这样做吗?”，斯特凡诺普洛斯问拜登。
“不，”拜登说。“没有人对我说过那句话，那是我能回忆起来的。”
拜登还表示，他的军事顾问在这个问题上“意见不一”。
麦肯齐说，他还警告说，美军的撤离“将不可避免地导致阿富汗政府和阿富汗军队的崩溃。”
他说:“我还认为，这些部队的撤离将不可避免地导致阿富汗军事力量的崩溃，并最终导致阿富汗政府的崩溃。
“战略失败”
奥斯汀和米利对参议员们说，阿富汗政府的突然垮台，以及过去20年来美军在阿富汗的使命，都应该受到审视，以了解可能出了什么问题。
米莉成为第一位将美国在阿富汗的军事任务描述为“战略失败”的美国军事领导人，这种失败是随着时间的推移而形成的。
“像这样一场战争的结果，一个战略失败的结果——敌人在喀布尔掌权，没有其他方式来描述——这是20年的累积效应，”米莉说。
这位将军推测，美国训练的阿富汗军队“模仿”了美国军队，没有考虑到当地的文化传统，让它过于依赖美国的技术。
奥斯汀说:“我们帮助建立了一个州，但我们无法打造一个国家。“事实上，阿富汗军队，我们和我们训练的伙伴，只是简单地消失了——在许多情况下没有开枪——这让我们都感到惊讶。不这样说是不诚实的。”
“我们需要考虑一些令人不安的事实，”他补充道。“我们没有充分理解高级官员中腐败和领导不力的程度，我们没有理解加尼总统频繁和不明原因地轮换其指挥官所造成的破坏性影响，我们没有预料到塔利班指挥官在多哈协议之后与地方领导人达成的协议所造成的滚雪球效应，多哈协议本身对阿富汗士兵产生了打击士气的影响， 我们没有充分认识到，很多阿富汗军队只会为谁而战。 我们向阿富汗军方提供了设备和飞机以及使用它们的技能。”
奥斯汀说:“这些年来，他们经常勇敢地战斗。“成千上万的阿富汗士兵和警察死亡。但最终，我们无法给他们提供获胜的意愿。至少不是全部。”
将军们说，美国情报部门没有预测到塔利班的迅速接管
三位领导人对阿富汗军队迅速瓦解，导致塔利班在11天内接管该国表示惊讶。
“我没想到会是几天。我认为这可能需要几个月的时间，”麦肯齐说，他补充说，他预计阿富汗军队能够坚持到今年晚些时候，可能会持续到明年初。
奥斯汀说:“我们当然没有计划在11天内让政府垮台。
“据我所知，没有任何情报评估表明政府将在11天内崩溃，军队也将崩溃。米勒说，他后来将未能预测塔利班收购案的范围和规模描述为“摇摆不定和失手”
《书》中的启示
在开幕词中，米莉解释说《华盛顿邮报》记者鲍勃·伍德沃德和罗伯特·科斯塔在《危险》一书中首次描述了他给中国同行的两个电话是如何得到时任国防部长马克·埃斯珀授权的。米莉还表示，特朗普国家安全团队充分了解了这些电话，这些电话旨在向中国保证，时任总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)没有策划军事袭击。
“我知道，我确信，特朗普总统并没有打算攻击中国人，向中国人传达这一意图是我的直接责任，也是国务卿对我的直接责任，”米莉说。“我当时的任务是再次降级我的信息是一致的，保持冷静、稳健和降级。我们不会攻击你。”
“我知道，我确信，特朗普总统无意攻击中国人，这是我的直接责任...为了向中国人传达这一意图，”马克·米利将军证实，与中国人的通话是例行公事。https://t.co/utdRqW8IK7pic.twitter.com/ISWS14pFIU
—美国广播公司新闻政治(@美国广播公司政治)2021年9月28日
他反驳了书中的另一个故事，即在1月6日国会大厦袭击后与众议院议长南希·佩洛西的电话中，他同意她的评估，即特朗普“疯了。”
米莉说:“我没有资格评价一位前总统、现任总统、其他任何人或这个房间里的任何人的精神健康状况。“那不是我的工作。那不是我做的。这不是我做的。”
几位共和党参议员指责米莉允许记者和作家进入。
田纳西州参议员玛莎·布莱克本(Marsha Blackburn)说:“我认为你所做的是腾出时间与这些作者交谈，提升你的形象，某种程度上营造了这种气势，但随后没有把重点放在阿富汗和那里发生的事情上。米莉将军，这让我感到失望。我知道这让那些曾在你手下服役的人很失望。这不符合我们国家的利益。”
“你正在做这些采访，并在2021年做。让我对这些书感到好奇，你是否对阿富汗发生的事情有点分心?”密苏里州的共和党参议员乔什·霍利说，他随后要求奥斯汀和米莉辞职。
Key takeaways from US military leaders on Afghanistan withdrawal
In their first appearance before Congress since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces fromAfghanistan, the nation's top military leaders candidly admitted to lawmakers that they hadrecommended to President Joe Bidenthat the U.S. should keep a troop presence there, appearing to contradict his assertions.
The testimony by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, was at odds with Biden's comments earlier this year to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that his military commanders did not recommend keeping a residual force.
The revelations came during a six-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee where Milley also characterized that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan had been "a strategic failure" and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it was time to acknowledged some "uncomfortable truths" about the two decade U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.
Here are some key takeaways:
Military commanders wanted to keep at least 2,500 troops in Afghanistan
While Milley and McKenzie said they would not disclose the content of private conversations with Biden, both generals offered their personal opinions that they said matched their recommendations.
"My assessment was back in the fall of '20 and remained consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2,500, could bounce up to 3,500," Milley told Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
"I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and I also recommended early in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time, those were my personal views," McKenzie said.
The generals' statements were at odds with what Biden had told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in aninterviewon Aug. 18.
"No one told -- your military advisers did not tell you, "No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It's been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that?," Stephanopoulos asked Biden.
"No," said Biden. "No one said that to me, that I can recall."
Biden also said his military advisers were "split" on the matter.
McKenzie said he had also warned that the withdrawal of U.S. troops "would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Afghan military."
"I also had a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government," he said.
'A strategic failure'
Austin and Milley told senators that the sudden collapse of the Afghan government, as well as the U.S. military's mission in Afghanistan over the past two decades, should be examined to learn what may have gone wrong.
Milley became the first U.S. military leader to describe the American military mission in Afghanistan as "a strategic failure" that had developed over time.
"Outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that is a strategic failure — the enemy is in charge in Kabul, there’s no way else to describe that — that is a cumulative effect of 20 years," Milley said.
The general speculated that the U.S. had trained an Afghan Army that "mirrored" the American military without taking into account local and cultural traditions and allowed it to becoe too dependent on American technology.
"We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation," said Austin. "The fact that the Afghan army, we and our partners trained, simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise. It would be dishonest to claim otherwise."
"We need to consider some uncomfortable truths," he added. "That we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks, that we did not grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that Taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the Doha agreement, that the Doha agreement itself had a demoralizing effect on Afghan soldiers, and that we failed to fully grasp that there was only so much for which – and for whom – many of the Afghan forces would fight. We provided the Afghan military with equipment and aircraft and the skills to use them."
"Over the years, they often fought bravely," said Austin. "Tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police officers died. But in the end, we couldn’t provide them with the will to win. At least not all of them."
US intelligence did not predict the Taliban's swift takeover, the generals said
The three leaders expressed surprise at how Afghan forces had quickly fallen apart leading to a Taliban takeover of the country in 11 days.
"I did not foresee it to be days. I thought it could take months," said McKenzie, who added that he had anticipated that the Afghan military would be able to hold out against the Taliban until later this year and possibly into early next year.
"We certainly did not plan against a collapse of the government in 11 days," Austin said.
"There's no intel assessment that says the government is going to collapse and the military is going to collapse in 11 days that I'm aware of. And I've read I think all of them," said Milley, who later described the failure to predict the scope and scale of the Taliban takeover as "a swing and a miss."
Revelations in 'the book'
In his opening statement, Milley explainedhow his two phone calls to his counterpart in China, first described in the book "Peril" by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, were authorized by then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Milley also said that the Trump national security team was fully briefed on the calls that were intended to reassure China that then-President Donald Trump was not planning a military attack.
"I know, I am certain, that President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese, and it is my directed responsibility and it was my directed responsibility by the secretary, to convey that intent to the Chinese," Milley said. "My task at that time was to de-escalate my message again was consistent, stay calm, steady and de-escalate. We are not going to attack you."
“I know, I am certain, that President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese and it is my directed responsibility...to convey that intent to the Chinese," Gen. Mark Milley testifies that the calls to his Chinese counterpart were routine.https://t.co/utdRqW8IK7pic.twitter.com/ISWS14pFIU
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics)September 28, 2021
He pushed back on another story in the book that, in a phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, he agreed with her assessment that Trump was "crazy."
"I’m not qualified to evaluate the mental fitness or the health of a former president, present president or anybody else or anybody in this room," Milley said. "That’s not my job. That’s not what I do. And that’s not what I did."
Several Republican senators took Milley to task for giving access to reporters and authors.
“I think what you did with making time to talk to these authors, burnishing your image, kind of building that bluster, but then not putting the focus on Afghanistan and what was happening there," said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. "General Milley, this is disappointing to me. I know it's disappointing to people that have served with you or under you, under your command. It does not serve our nation.”
"You’re doing these interviews and doing them in 2021. Makes me wonder the books, were you a little distracted about what was going on in Afghanistan?” said GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri who then demanded that Austin and Milley should resign.
