taliban is more than al-qaeda and the documents show bin laden before he was killed in letters to al-qaeda and he was the main negotiator for the taliban with the americans. so the documents pretrade a warm relationship and is ten years old now, fast-forward to the un report and password to accounts of al-qaeda being on the front line today i was way skeptical of these groups which i think people make a mistake when everybody's going to behave like a national actor but a rational actor there is a bunch of taliban and you know who they are they always said the taliban will realize a disaster in the do the right thing and separate themselves from a kinda in the documentary record say that's not true, i do think that was a moment of the missed in 2002 the taliban were defeated and it would've been easier to have a piece negotiation with them then when they were defeated and ready to talk and that was basically not taken. but today they get into a piece negotiation with afghan government. and that was one of the premises a piece negotiation in 2018. >> i have a lot of questions and i talk abou

qaeda to america or another or targeting the guilty the very small number of al qaeda fighters hiding out in afghanistan. instead he wrote a regime change that did not attack us. and then a 20 year war against all of its attendees an attempt to prop at new government up. now for 20 years they have admitted what has been true which is the war is a loss and the taliban has one. they never could have won that war. now the proof is in the pudding. the critics were right all along. and the proponents were wrong. twenty years later the u.s. is pulling out of afghanistan. when you think the results would be? >> i think is going to be real trouble for the parties that america has supported in power for all of this time. and iraq or two they fought for the super majority. they kicked america right out the students we are done winning the war for them. the government created in baghdad is still the government of iraq. in afghanistan the situation is different. essentially been attempting a coalition of minorities on the morality of the country the 40% of the population and they have essentially

lara: will you renounce al qaeda. >> anyone who are killing civilians. >> not anyone, al qaeda specifically. will you say you would renounce al qaeda. >> i think anyone who are killing -- that is our clear policy, i think that is clear. lara: it is not clear sir, i think you are avoiding -- >> for us it is clear. maybe not clear for you, but for us it is clear. lara: do share-al qaeda ideology. >> we do not have any foreign agenda. that we have proved last 20 years, we were able to care out attacks outside of afghanistan, against those in waiting countries who have had invaded our country. but we didn't do that. we fought them in our country. in order to gain independence. >> do you not support al qaeda's goal to see the onerous scourge to the earth. >> i already told you our policy. >> i understand, sir, it does not seem honest, because, you fight side by side with al qaeda, the dead are found together. you are treated in the same hospital in pakistan, you have married to each other's families there is al qaeda bases that have been found where the taliban and al qaeda are working and opera

reports about al qaeda. they claim that some of the provinces -- i mentioned that now that the taliban is in control, they could spread out even further. on top of that, there is always a complicated relationship we have had with pakistan, because the pakistani intelligence service, going back to the 90's. as far as i am aware, i note the u.s. has at least tried to talk to countries like uzbekistan to try and work out of military bases there, but nothing has come of that yet. therefore, you have this dilemma that is going to be happening. >> let us not exaggerate the degree to which the tablian is going to control afghanistan. they might not have a real handle on some of these groups. take a look at when tablian group started in pakistan, the afghan tablian were not particularly happy. there were some battles between the two. but that did not really stop it. it may well be the case that the tablian is not interested in doing anything about these jihadists, but it also could be the case that -- katie: i was g

some of these tastes are al-qaeda big wigs i tracked the presence of al-qaeda and affiliated groups in 18 of afghanistan's 34 provinces from november 2020 to april of 2021. in june the u.n. security council reported that large numbers of al-qaeda fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the taliban are located in various parts of afghanistan. in addition, a significant part of the leadership of al-qaeda resides in afghanistan and pakistan's border region. in the spring, the defense intelligence agency reported that the taliban has maintained close ties with al-qaeda. in january, the u.s. treasury department reported that al-qaeda is gaining strength in afghanistan while continuing to operate with the taliban under the taliban's protection. lastly, al-qaeda capitalizes on its relationship with the taliban through its network of mentors and advisors who are embedded with the taliban providing advice, guidance and financial support. this is a guy who knows this stuff. you were on the ground in afghanistan. how can the president say that al-qaeda is gone? >> again, either

that is the result of the approach of helping al qaeda and iraq. they were both helping them and the iraqi forces. i would assume that the attitude of the iranians would be to seek simultaneously good relationships with the taliban and also work with who is personal. there is a wonderful report from the think tank before the september 11 attacks which was describing how the uranian government but a lot of efforts in building up the northern alliance at the same time, the fire -- force in iran was putting in a lot of effort to helping the taliban. the normal approach of the iranians will work with everyone. that is what i assume they will do this time. i see no indication based on my indic -- speculation. >> well, i think we have exhausted the questions i have received. three of you have offered very insightful remarks. i think it is good to go out on a high note so with that, i will thank you all. all of my esteemed guests, thank you for joining us with your observations. i urge all of our viewers to go to the website of the washington institute. y

with al-qaeda." one of the critical capabilities that a terrorist organization such as al-qaeda needs is resources here in the states. if they could acquire the capability of a u.s. citizen or a group of u.s. citizens that are completely off the radar, well, that's, that's a pretty formidable threat. so, at the time, i'm thinking maybe something was miscmunicated, misunderstood. you know, one of the ways we resolve that is reconstitute the conversation and capture it on audio. (tape recorder starts) >> this is special agent john p. stewart with the federal bureau of investigation, miami division. today's date, october 3, 2005. the time, 2:45 p.m. (phone calling out) (tape recorder stops) >> hm. it was just one of the worst, i guess you could say, things that could have ever happened to us in our life. because this cry from this man for narseal to help him turned out actually to be what actually set everything for us in turmoil. >> the turning point between me and abbas is when i went to the store, i

with al qaeda gone. we went to afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al qaeda in afghanistan as well as -- as well as getting osama bin laden. and we did. >> critics are not so sure that this is a case of why is getting across. they are going so far as to accuse the biden administration of misleading the world by misrepresenting the intelligence that they got. >> when they said that they did not have intelligence, that's not true appeared when they said al qaeda was dead, that's not true. when they said they had contingency plans, that's not true. there's a lot more we have to do. >> and we expect a lot of new information from the white house within the next hour and a half or so. president biden spend most of his morning in the situation room with his national security team. followed by the first press briefing with jen psaki since last tuesday, and a lot has happened in afghanistan since last tuesday. sandra. >> sandra: that's right. she skipped a couple of days last week. we look forwa

al qaeda has been vastly diminished. it has been, right now, it does not exist, so in terms of what we set out to do in afghanistan, we have done it. >> sandra: did he get that right, morgan? >> these talking points, it looks like they were written a month ago, and they are so divorced from the reality, that the entire world is seeing on the ground right now, i do not know where the communication team is at the white house for the state department, they have a very tough job. i have been in there she is here just a few months ago, i was. but when you send these leaders out to repeat messages that are so divorced from the pictures and their reality on the ground, you are not convincing anyone. in fact, whatever the message is, it is unsettling. we feel like who is in charge? who is running things? i think there's a couple big things to look for going forward. most importantly, our intelligence collection capabilities. we had a lot of capabilities collectively in afghanistan, but we have pulled away from those. all of the

he's also a member in very good standing in al qaeda. that just shows you these groups are completely interconnected, margaret and exist in an eco-system there in afghanistan and pakistan that houses over 20 u.s. designated terrorist organizations. just to give you a quick lineage on isis-k. isis-k came from many of the leaders. most of the leaders came from tariqi, formed to act as a terrorist arm of the foreign policy. then that group morph into isis and these people are not adherent to just one particular group but to this violent felicity huffman. to establish this back nth seventh century. i ink what's wrong about that statement is they're not driven principally by interest. >> you said this week, it's time to reverse course, scrap the withdrawal deadline and cut off dealings with the taliban. what should we do now in your view? zb >> i think it depends on what the mission is. if the mission is withdraw only, right, we're going tosee, i think, a contied very, very difficult mission play out. and if the decision is to get all america

qaeda was resident and also to the taliban, which had harbored al qaeda. that was our approach. we had to do that and our teams from cia were on the ground in afghanistan within 15 days after 9/11. we had two teams on the ground because we had maintained contact over the previous two or three years in at least five visits with members of what was then called the northern alliance, the group that was fighting the taliban. we had friends on the ground that could receive the teams, and we went in in september and by november under kabul had fallen. i would say those early years were basically good years in terms of eroding al qaeda and defeating taliban and installing a government that was at least at the outset seemed worthy of the afghan people and consistent with what we we wanted, what we thought afghanistan ought to be in terms of human rights and so forth. it got more complicated the longer we were there, so i think the judgment about whether it was worth it is yet to be made. i would add one other thing, as result of american involvement, no matter wha

the taliban are al qaeda, we're putting al-qaeda terrorists into power in afghanistan. and we're about to give them legitimacy of a state with u.s. recognition and taxpayer money on 20 anniversary of 9/11? is that seriously when the u.s. government is doing and republican and democrat leaders are allowing to happen, trey? seriously? trey: apparently it is. we have the clip, the pepsi versus coke analogy. >> what is relationship between the taliban and al qaeda? >> there were supposed to sever and cap their ties with al qaeda. reporter: they have not? >> it is difference between the taste of coke and pepsi, if you remove the labels, you can say which is coke and which is pepsi. trey: lara. here is the question, a lot of viewers get confused. what is difference if any between the taliban, al qaeda and isis? >> ideologically they believe in the same thing. osama bin laden and al qaeda used 9/11 as the moment that they established this ideology as base for all holy war or jihad across the world today. literally translated, al qaeda, means the base. there are many geographic

point with al qaeda gone? >> chris: but a u.n. report this summer says that al qaeda is resident in 15 of the 34 provinces of afghanistan and general milley said this summer that if the taliban fell, that he was -- or rather took over kabul, he was going to have to upgrade the terror threat from al qaeda? what the president said just wasn't true. we to chris, step back for one second. first, as we all know, we went to afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission and one purpose in mind, that was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11, to bring them to justice, which we did a decade ago and to diminish the capacity of al qaeda to do the same thing again, to attack us from afghanistan, and that, to the president's point, has been successful. we got bin laden a decade ago. >> chris: the president said al qaeda is gone. a simple question, is al qaeda gone from pakistan -- from afghanistan? >> secretary blinken: al qaeda's capacity to do it at that did on 9/11, to attack us, attack our partners or allies from

myconcern is with the taliban's rise and its decision not to break ties with al qaeda, al qaeda is going to become resurgent, is going to use afghanistan as a safe haven again, and the worst case scenario is they try to stage external operations and attacks from inside afghanistan against external target. at the same time, the taliban has not demonstrated it can govern. the attack on the kabul airport a few days ago in large part was because of the taliban's incompetence. isis is going to try to exploit that however they can. my fear is that will lead to a civil war in afghanistan, where you have this triumvirate of terror. the taliban on one side, al qaeda on one side, and isis on one side. tom: you are painting a daunting picture, but it is aligned with some of the other analysis out there. you are pointing to the resurgence or the attacks by isis-k, an affiliate or spin off of isis. the terror groups operating out of afghanistan and pakistan, you are talking about the potential of a civil war. what is the threat beyond afghanistan's borders? >> with the u.s. departure, inevitably ther

terrorist attack on american soil by al qaeda. you never want to say never because this is an ongoing threat. does the al qaeda still have the ambition to attack the u.s. homeland. >> ambition is one thing, capability is another. right now i think they have no capacity to conduct a kind of attack -- we did have an attack in pensacola, florida, back in 2019 that had some links to al qaeda and if they directed the attack or aware of the attack as it was being planned. that killed three american sailors. but that is the only attack by a foreign terrorist organization since 9/11. it is a fact that speaks for itself. here we are almost two decades from the 9/11 anniversary. so we, the united states, has been pretty successful with our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities. >> but now we're pulling out. and when you hear public testimony from the director of the cia, he said that not having u.s. boots on ground there will impact intelligence gathering but also the concern of counter-terror operations. has the u.s. made i

al qaeda so far, this promise has been a-year-old, over a year, al qaeda has still not commented on that because i think in my opinion, al qaeda does not want to say or do anything that might jeopardize any gains made by the taliban. this is a victory come as jihadists see it, and they hope to flourish under taliban rule. on the other hand you have the islamic state, isis, a staunch rival of the taliban, and continues to claim attacks against the taliban. isis is active in afghanistan through a small branch province. isis will do its best to spoil it for the taliban and make the taliban look bad, that it's not able to exert control over afghanistan, therefore isis is likely to continueo attack in the country. ross: let's take a look at the situation in kabul today. the situation has largely been relatively calm, military flies have resumed, you can see indian personnel here being evacuated early on tuesday, a french plane was also able to fly out. on the u.k.'s evacuation efforts, here's the commander of joint operations. >> led by a significant investment of u.s. troops and also by our

with al-qaeda gone? >> reporter: -- don't have military intelligence estimates about how many al-qaeda remain in afghanistan. >> we know that al-qaeda is a presence as well as isis in afghanistan, and we've talked about that for quite some time. >> reporter: there are now roughly 6,000 u.s. troops on the ground at the kabul airport. they are under strict orders not to leave the airport. officials say they don't want a repeat of mogadishu and blackhawk down. liz? elizabeth: thank you, jennifer griffin, it's good to see you. okay, we're staying on this subject. joining us now, an afghan interpreter, california congressman and navy veteran mike garcia. first to you, zack. thank you both for joining us. your reaction to the president today. a lot of rhetoric that doesn't match the action on the ground. what did you think? [audio difficulty] elizabeth: okay, we're going to -- we're having trouble with your sound. we're going to come back to you as soon as we fix that technical difficulty. congressman, we've a

qaeda was resident and also to the taliban, which had harbored al qaeda. that was our approach. we had to do that and our teams from cia were on the ground within 15 days after 9/11. we had two teams on the ground because we had maintained contact over the previous two or three years and at least five visits with members of what was then called the northern alliance, the group that was fighting the taliban. we had friends on the ground that could receive the teams, and we went in in september and by november couple had fallen. i would say those early years were basically good years in terms of eroding al qaeda and defeating taliban and installing a government that was at least at the outset seemed worthy of the people and consistent with what we we wanted, what we thought afghanistan ought to be in terms of human rights and so forth. it got more complicated the longer we were there, so i think the judgment about whether it was worth it is yet to be made. i would add one other thing, as result of american involvement, no matter what the ultimate judgment is

i new at that moment, when the second plane hit the building, i knew this was al qaeda. i instantly knew that, there was no question my mind who had done it. it would mean we were going to go to war. we would be in order soon and i wanted to be a part of that. >> you would focus on counterterrorism for years at this point. another interesting you were there at a weird time story in the book is a month before the african bombings you were actually at one of the african embassy's time bad security was pre- >> that happened by chance i visited the one in nairobi actually. i was talking to an embassy officer there about their poor security the physical security of the embassy. we happened to be standing and in a >> spot for a truck a month later would detonate and kill a lot of people. i was overseas in that attack happened. i was back at my stations i had left from when i went to visit in africa. as of the newspaper that morning i saw the graph, the picture over the bomb had gone off. i realize incident exactly that place was. that was the place i visited and the officer ni

qaeda figure -- an important al qaeda figure. no sooner had they done that then isis emerged in the same place. it is in some sense a machine that has no way of turning itself off. host: viewers are going to be hearing a lot about the pech valley in the segment of the washington value. -- washington journal. explain where the pech is and why the pech is such a unique part of afghanistan. guest: sure. the pech valley is about 100 miles northeast of kabul. it is not right on the border with pakistan but it is close. it is a place that has a credible difficult terrain. we often picture or i often picture afghanistan as before first went there as desert and dry mountains. in this part of the country, it is lush vegetation, very thick pine and cedar and for tree forests on jagged mountains in valleys that are so narrow that almost describe them as gorges more than valleys. which poses a lot of difficult technical problems for the u.s. military up there, whether that is units trying to fly in and land somewhere, because there's a limit

qaeda was resident and also to the taliban, which had harbored al qaeda. that was our approach. we had to do that and our teams from cia were on the ground within 15 days after 9/11. we had two teams on the ground because we had maintained contact over the previous two or three years and at least five visits with members of what was then called the northern alliance, the group that was fighting the taliban. we had friends on the ground that could receive the teams, and we went in in september and by november couple had fallen. i would say those early years were basically good years in terms of eroding al qaeda and defeating taliban and installing a government that was at least at the outset seemed worthy of the people and consistent with what we we wanted, what we thought afghanistan ought to be in terms of human rights and so forth. it got more complicated the longer we were there, so i think the judgment about whether it was worth it is yet to be made. i would add one other thing, as result of american involvement, no matter what the ultimate judgment is

qaeda but a cohesive organization between al qaeda, ice i and the taliban? we have to take that threat seriously. we have to act upon the intelligence that we have. we have to be aggressive in dealing with it. yes, i mean, obviously, this is a nation, a country that doesn't operate as a nation. it operates very much as a, you know, a group of tribal villages. the fact that we have the taliban in position right now is concerning. but it doesn't necessarily justify 20 more years of us being there. i think there are going to have to be ways that we monitor the activities there and act accordingly if we see a threat emerging. that's a tough place to be for us as a nation, buzz tt that's e tur we are. it is better to be there in the long term. >> congressman dan kilde, thank you for taking time to talk with us. thank you, sir. >> thank you. >>> we are watching the podium at the pentagon where, at any moment, we are expecting an update on evacuations in afghanistan. we're going to take you there live as soon as the briefing begins. stay with us. it's the biggest s

is al qaeda gone from afghanistan? >> al qaeda's capacity to do what it did on 9/11, to attack us, attack our partners and allies is vastly, vastly diminished. >> is it gone? >> are there al qaeda members and remnants in afghanistan? yes. but what the president was referring to was its capacity to do what it did on 9/11. and that capacity has been very successfully diminished. >> miranda, wrong about the number of al qaeda there. wrong when saying our allies are supportive of us. that will get us to our next segment. wrongly saying no americans are having trouble getting to the airport. wrong when he told george stephanopoulos no one is being killed. is this incompetence or lies? there certainly seems to be many of them on a daily basis. >> you're right. for anybody who paid any attention to joe biden's history, it's just par for the course. it's the way he's always been. he's always spun fantasies, whether it's about his own, embellishing his own record, pretending that he was part of civil rights movement, that he me

we tried to illuminate al qaeda. -- eliminate al qaeda. that is all being taken away right now. i am struggling today. it is really tough. we can piss and moan. but everyone needs to contact ias and the human refugee society and get as many people out as we can. there are a lot of people being killed. host: adam, have you been in touch over the years since you left? caller: some of them are still facebook friends. if you are facebook friends with afghans, make sure it is secret. i have a friend who was up all night, trying to get people out. they had meetings yesterday morning. there is no time. we need to get them out now. you can see the airport, it was a mess. host: were you in kabul when you were there in 2009? caller: i was in kabul. i was across the street from blackwater. that's where i was. host: what did you think when you saw the pictures yesterday of taliban soldiers driving through town and the press briefing they held at the presidential palace? caller: i was gutted. i had to leave the house. i got blackout drunk. it is heartbreaking. i'm fine, we are all fine in am

al qaeda has been working with the taliban. al qaeda is linked to the taliban. they share leadership and operations, some of the taliban prisoners that were released as a result of the february 2020 deal that the u.s. struck with the taliban were, in fact, al qaeda. i think it is a mistake to say we could be going back to a point where al qaeda can reestablish a safe haven. al qaeda has been operating in afghanistan for a long time. i think the fact that the biden administration has so cavalierly dismissed that and are now making threats against the taliban if they provide a safe haven for al qaeda suggests they don't understand what's going on on the ground at all. >> bill: jessica we've seen pretty horrific images already today of women and kids in the street bleeding. obviously victims of some level of violence leveled by the taliban. this could be just the beginning of it. who knows what's happening in the countryside. how are we to interpret the future for women in afghanistan after this departure. >> the future is extremely dire. what we saw in kabul was t

the real threat today is not al qaeda. it's isis which you could say is fifth generation al qaeda, but these guys are hard core. they're very, very small. and in fact, the taliban has actually coordinated indirectly with us to wipe some of these groups and their base camps out because they -- you know, they view the taliban almost as infidels to a certain extent. what's going to happen here is quite simple. we're going back to a reset of september 2001 minus osama bin laden and al qaeda. the islamical-qaeda. the islamic emirate of afghanistan will reestablish itself. it never went away. it was essentially holed up in qatar. but you know, if they're going to operate as a terrorist safe haven, i'm not sure that that's necessarily true. they cannot really project power. look, yes. they got a bunch of ford rangers and humvees and a bunch of you know, you know, heavy machine guns from us. but they are not going to become a terrorist force projection organization the way al-qaeda, i mean, isis in iraq was, right? with the great

basically our leaders failed and didn't understand that. >> bret: al-qaeda 3.0 the next version of al-qaeda norm just mentioned it tom, we are getting ready for 20th anniversary of 9/11. the taliban and jihadists kind of like calendars. this could increase the chatter ahead of that. >> oh, the chatter has already increased, bret, just before i came on air here i follow hundreds of jihadi social media sites several new sites from popped up they are all issuing victory statements saying al-qaeda and the taliban beat america. this is the message going out across the world. we say in 2013 and 2014 how it can be when isis declared its caliphate. now you are getting next iteration of caliphate united emirate of afghanistan which isis said would be new number nucleus.al-qaeda has been much e invested and they are already declaring victory. >> bret: norm, for the rest of the world looking at this, you touched on that. here is the french president macron talking about this today. >> terrorist groups are present in afghanistan and seek to profit from the destabilization. the united nations security c

bombing of afghanistan, the taliban offered to hand over osama bin laden, the leader of al qaeda, but the bush administration rejected any negotiations with the taliban. this is bush's press secretary ari fleischer responding to a question in october 2001. >> would you go so far as to say a matter what the taliban might say at this point -- are you ignoring whatever they may say? >> the president could have not been more clear when he said there will be no discussions or negotiations. so what they say is not as important as what they do. it is time for them to act. it has been time for them to act. amy: in december 2001, the taliban offered to surrender control of kandahar if its leader mullah mohammed omar would be allowed to "live in dignity" in opposition custody. u.s. defense secretary donald rumsfeld rejected the deal. >> if you are asking an arrangement with omar where he could "live in dignity in the kandahar someplace in afghanistan be consistent with what i have said, the answer is, no, it would not be consistent with what i have said. amy: that is donald rumsfeld speaking on

qaeda in afghanistan. we did it. then what happened? it began to morph into the notion that instead of having a counterterrorism capability to have small forces in air or in the region to be able to take on al qaeda if it tried to reconstitute we decided to engage in nation building, in nation building. that never made any sense to me.

al qaeda not a threat. al qaeda not a threat. then senator biden in 2004 said yeah, terrorists will be a threat if there is a power vacuum. so the thing is, the white house got rid of trump's deal which basically said, we'll release 5000 taliban prisoners, people are criticizing that. it was in exchange for a thousand afghan soldiers. it was in exchange for conditions, that if you touch a hair on an american's head we will retaliate. your reaction to the power vacuum the president created even knowing for years this would be a problem? >> this is an incredibly weak administration. we saw this in iraq a number of years ago during the obama administration where troops were pulled out leaving a vacuum for isis to gain strength. we see this right now. only the fact of the matter is the country of afghanistan fell to the taliban in a matter after week 1/2. we absolutely need to pull together with our allies, with the brits, with the french, you name it. we need to come together. we need to work together. and we

and you said it, biden lied about al qaeda. sue and a lot of black hawk at helicopters should pretty high value hardware. and charlie, i think at the end of the day, and a battlefield situation, but this is turn into we have to rescue our people. our americans and isis, to me this is the biggest gaping hole in the biden narrative and it was -underscore today it is news conference read and he said this quote, any american who wants to leave, will first of all, what is that mean. do you mean go to meet not want to leave because there on vacation and they may have two more golf games, of course are all going to want to leave because the taliban is going to hunt them down. we know that but on the other hand, we believe anybody in the battlefield commits a military tradition, never leave anybody on the battlefield dead or alive. we will go out and find them. rose stuck in the airport, 6000 troops pray to god bless those troops. been out of the going to go get the other people and some are going to be scattered around the provinces.

remember al-qaeda? 25 days we will be commemoratin the 25th anniversary of the 9- 11 attacks that took so many american lives. now top pentagon officials and others are warning that terror was back -- based in afghanistan could bunc new attacks here on the us olympic given that nightmare scenario, lawmakers now slammin president biden and accusing hi of putting american lives at risk. >> the biggest thing, it's a disaster for our counterterrorism. al-qaeda 3.0 will come roaring back. al-qaeda and taliban are marrie at the hip. with this time when we go back in, the talent banned are going to be better armed with taxpaye funded equipment and we have no allies because they have all been hunted down. i want to see resignations. >> that want to see resignation also but i have a slightly different take on it. remember what happened the last time the taliban hosted al-qaeda . al-qaeda had us. we came back and wiped out the taliban and took their country. another for us, it cost them their country for 20 years

the goal was to to defeat al qaeda. and it was to prevent al qaeda from launch ago tacks. we did that and a lot more. it includes the helping with social political economic and progress in afghanistan. the president decided that it was time to end that there was really only two choices. and there was a deadline. because after may 1st, we could come under attack by the taliban. and we hadn't since the doja agreement had been signed or go ahead and complete the drawdown. and the decision was made to complete the drawdown. obviously, we're still going to maintain an overwatch vigilance with respect to the counter-terrorism threat emanating out of afghanistan. and if -- and in we need, to we'll take action to eliminate and defeat that threat. >> you just said you don't have intelligence on the ground in afghanistan anymore. how are you going to have overwatch? you still have al qaeda in the country? >> jen, what i said is we don't have the degree of dexterity intelligence to give you a head count, a nose count of exactly how many al qaeda fighters are in afghanistan. nobody's

is al qaeda gone from afghanistan? >> al qaeda's capacity to do what it did on 9/11 to attack us and our partners or allies from afghanistan is vastly, vastly diminished. >> is it gone? >> are there al qaeda members and remnants in afghanistan? yes. >> bill: marc thiessen with us now. marc, good morning. may get interrupted when the pent gron briefing begins. he said there were no troops in syria, which there are. he also said there has been no criticism or backlash on behalf of our allies. that's obviously the case. boris johnson, tony blair, et ra. where are we now? >> governed by -- he is not aware of the facts on the ground in the worst foreign policy crisis in my lifetime. and tony blinken. the answer to chris wallace's question is no, the president was wrong. he tried to say there are al qaeda remnants in afghanistan. first of all. there are more than al qaeda remnants in afghanistan. there were only isis remnants in iraq when joe biden presided over the withdrawal of troops in iraq. according to them it had only

al qaeda is there. al qaeda can stay there. the taliban leaders knew that. and frankly, i think a lot of the leaders that we were workin with you that as well. >> thank you very much. always good to see you. a great group as we wait for th president to speak and no surprise i think that he they are running a little bit late for they are watching every single word in this statement i extremely important how the resident person this. this is a present story for now. we will see here back your. >> we are waiting to hear from the presidents i can only be a couple minutes away. the turned turns into saigon on steroids returning it to. the president is expected to say . i faced difficult choice, follo through on the deal, with the brief extends to get our forces in our allied forces out of safety or ramp up american troops