{"id":823843,"date":"2021-09-28T12:43:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=823843"},"modified":"2021-09-28T12:43:42","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:43:42","slug":"its-a-simple-question-tom-cotton-confronts-top-generals-over-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/its-a-simple-question-tom-cotton-confronts-top-generals-over-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s A Simple Question\u2019: Tom Cotton Confronts Top Generals Over Biden\u2019s Afghanistan Withdrawal"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fits-a-simple-question-tom-cotton-confronts-top-generals-over-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=823843&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton confronted Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley during a Tuesday hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Cotton pressed both <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/15\/republicans-investigations-mark-milley-li-zuocheng-house-senate-armed-services\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milley<\/a> and Austin on what President Joe Biden had been advised to do with regard to the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan and whether or not he had heeded any of that advice. <strong><a class=\"text-black\" href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/21\/tom-cotton-biden-un-kick-me-sign-uncle-sams-back\/\">(RELATED: \u2018A Scared Child\u2019: Tom Cotton Says Biden Walked Into The UN \u2018And Put A Giant \u2018Kick Me\u2019 Sign On Uncle Sam\u2019s Back\u2019)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cotton began by asking the generals whether they had advised Biden to keep a small contingent of American troops in Afghanistan \u2014 and while they declined to comment on actual conversations they had with the president, they all agreed that their assessment had been in favor of leaving some 2500 troops on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Cotton then pointed to <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/28\/kenneth-mckenzie-mark-milley-inhofe-senate-armed-services-committee-biden-undercuts-afghanistan-withdrawal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Biden\u2019s own claim<\/a> that no military leader had advised him to leave a small troop presence in Afghanistan. \u201cIs that true?\u201d he asked Austin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Cotton, I believe that \u2013 first of all, I know the president to be an honest and forthright man, and secondly \u2013\u201d Austin began.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a simple question, Secretary Austin,\u201d Cotton interrupted. \u201cHe said no senior military leader advised him to leave small troop presence behind. Is that true or not? Did these officers\u2019 and Gen. Milley\u2019s recommendations get to the president personally?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir input was received by the president and considered by the president for sure,\u201d Austin insisted, saying that he could not comment specifically on conversations the president might have had.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s shocking to me. It sounds like maybe their best military advice was never presented personally to the President of the United States about such a highly consequential matter,\u201d Cotton replied.<\/p>\n<p>Cotton then pivoted to Biden\u2019s claim that the top generals had unanimously recommended that no troops be left in Afghanistan after August 31, and he asked when that unanimous recommendation had been made.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo on 25 August, I was asked to make an assessment and provide the best military advice \u2013\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/28\/milley-slaps-at-media-defends-chinese-phone-calls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milley<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry, my time is limited here. You gave me the answer I needed to hear. August 25?\u201d Cotton interrupted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCorrect,\u201d Milley agreed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKabul fell on August 15,\u201d Cotton objected, asking again, \u201cYou were not asked before August 25?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn August 25, I was asked whether we should keep military forces beyond the 31st,\u201d Milley said again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecretary Austin, was anybody asked before September 5 if we should keep troops at the Kabul airport?\u201d Cotton pivoted to Austin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe president asked us to provide an assessment whether or not we should extend our presence beyond August 31, and as Gen. Milley just said, that assessment was made. We tasked them to make that assessment on the 25th and he came back and provided his best military advice,\u201d Austin confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecretary \u2014 Kabul fell on August 15,\u201d Cotton said again, noting that by then it was already clear that there were Americans and Afghan allies who were going to be left stranded in Afghanistan under Taliban control.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt took 10 days to ask these general officers if we should extend our presence? I would expect the answer might be a little different if you were asking them 16 days out, not 5 days out,\u201d Cotton argued.<\/p>\n<p>The Arkansas senator concluded by turning back to Milley and asking why, if he had advised the president to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan, had he not resigned when Biden apparently ignored that advice with disastrous results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGen. Milley, I can only conclude that your advice about staying in Afghanistan was rejected. I\u2019m shocked to learn that your advice wasn\u2019t sought until August 25 on staying past the August 31 deadline,\u201d Cotton said. \u201cI understand that you\u2019re the principal military adviser, that you advise, you don\u2019t decide, the president decides. If all of this is true, Gen. Milley, why haven\u2019t you resigned?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. It\u2019s a political act if I\u2019m resigning in protest,\u201d Milley pushed back, saying that his job was to give advice and then to follow legal orders. \u201cThe president doesn\u2019t have to agree with that advice. He doesn\u2019t have to make those decisions just because we\u2019re generals. And it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton confronted Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley during a Tuesday hearing.Cotton pressed both Milley and Austin on what President Joe Biden &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}