Free Republic

Top military officials on Tuesday testified that they assessed that the U.S. should maintain a presence of at least 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitting that their input was "received" by President Biden, despite Biden's claims to the contrary. Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and head of U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday for a public hearing on the Biden administration's chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan. McKenzie and Milley both testified that they recommended maintaining a presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) appeared on CNN to blame former President Trump for the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to her, it’s been a tough process to get Afghans out of the country since Trump was in office. The senator called in from Honolulu. “Let’s be clear, though, that there are a lot of Afghans who were applying for the special immigrant visas, and the Trump Administration slow walked these visas to the point where it was not even happening,” Hirono said. “So the development of a lot of our Afghan partners and their families who are not able to...

U.S. intelligence agencies reported Monday that the Iranian regime paid bounties to a Taliban-backed Haqqani terrorist network to execute at least six attacks on U.S. military installations in Afghanistan, according to CNN. The intelligence community identified the link between Iran and the terrorist group in December after an attack on the Bagram Air Force Base killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, CNN reported. Two Trump administration officials speaking to CNN said the bounties were the catalyst for the White House decision to take out Iranian Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani by drone in January ,who Trump suggested...

The U.S. believes it may have brought down two Iranian drones last week, rather than just the one that has been reported, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told CBS News' David Martin in an interview Tuesday aboard the USS Boxer, the ship that took action against the drones. Asked by Martin whether it was "only one drone," McKenzie revealed that he believed the Boxer had engaged two drones "successfully" and perhaps even more. "As always it was a complex tactical picture, we believe two drones. We believe two drones were successfully — there may have been more that we are...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is meeting tomorrow with a pair of senior military commanders as tensions with Iran show no sign of abating. Pompeo is heading to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters Monday. "There, he will meet with Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of Central Command, and Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of Special Operations Command, to discuss regional security concerns and ongoing operations," she said. McKenzie is the Marine Corps general responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and Clarke is the Army general in charge of U.S. special...

President Donald Trump declared "mission accomplished" early Saturday morning after the U.S.-led predawn airstrikes in Syria dealt what Pentagon officials called a "very serious blow" that "attacked the heart of the Syrian chemical weapons program." While Syrian television reported that the nation's air defenses responded to the strikes, "none of our aircraft or missiles in this operation were successfully engaged" by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, said Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the director of the Joint Staff. "The Syrian response was remarkably ineffective," he told reporters.

Western leaders warned Syria on Saturday that they could launch further missile strikes if chemical weapons are used again, while the pre-dawn attacks were denounced by Damascus and its backers as illegal actions that would carry repercussions. But one major worry appeared to ease: That the coordinated attacks by the United States, France and Britain late Friday could have set off a direct confrontation with Syria’s most powerful military partner, Russia. At the Pentagon, the director of the Joint Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, said the more than 100 missile strikes delivered a blow to the “heart” of Syria’s chemical...