Milley and other military brass say it's mission difficult in Afghanistan

The big idea

Milley and military brass tell lawmakers U.S. mission in Afghanistan difficult but not impossible

President Biden faces a challenge in Afghanistan, and it goes by the name of “over-the-horizon” capability. It came up in today’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

At the top of the hearing, Milley delivered a lengthy defense of telephone calls he made to Chinese military officials, disputing he had reached out in secret as was reported in a new book, and conversations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in which they discussed nuclear weapons, denying he had improperly tried to hem in former president Donald Trump. 

“I know, I am certain, President Trump did not intend on attacking the Chinese and it is my directed responsibility – to convey presidential orders and intent. My job at that time was to de-escalate,” he said. “My message again was consistent: calm, steady, deescalate. We are not going to attack you.”

As for Pelosi, “I repeatedly assured her there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized, or accidental launch,” the general said. “At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command, but I am expected to give my advice and ensure that the president is fully informed.”

The No. 1 interest in Afghanistan

The No. 1 U.S. national security interest in Afghanistan remains preventing terrorists from using that war-torn country as a springboard for carrying out strikes on the United States or its allies, as al Qaeda did with the 9/11 attacks. (A close second might be getting all American citizens out who want to leave.)

But the American withdrawal means fewer sources of intelligence on the ground and no local bases from which to carry out drone surveillance and strikes, forcing the U.S. to operate from “over the horizon” -- from bases elsewhere in the region, or ships.

At the hearing outset, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the committee chairman, urged the witnesses to lay out what steps they would take to build “effective counter-terrorism architecture going forward.”

“There is no plan. We have no reliable partners on the ground. We have no bases nearby,” said the panel’s top Republican, Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.).

Fine line

Austin, Milley and Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, who oversees Afghanistan as head of Central Command, had to walk a fine line in their testimony: Acknowledge, as other senior U.S. officials have, that the withdrawal has made counterterrorism harder, while expressing confidence in being able to deter or destroy suspected terrorists.

“Over-the-horizon operations are difficult, but absolutely possible. And the intelligence that supports them comes from a variety of sources and not just U.S. boots on the ground,” Austin testified. “These are effective and fairly common operations.”

“We now must continue to protect the American people from terrorist attacks coming from Afghanistan,” Milley said. “That mission will be much harder now, but not impossible, and we will continue to protect the American people.”

Congressional criticisms have grown more acute since an Aug. 29 strike the Pentagon initially called “righteous” but that turned out to have killed 10 civilians, including an aid worker and seven children, prompting the Pentagon to apologize for a “horrible mistake.”

One question: Where did U.S. forces get their faulty intelligence?

Predictions of a terrorist resurgence after the withdrawal, like worries about the using an over-the-horizon approach, aren’t new.

In April, CIA Director William J. Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee the withdrawal came with a “significant risk” that groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaeda might try to build up their presence in Afghanistan and again plot attacks.

“When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish, that’s simply a fact,” Burns testified at an annual hearing on worldwide threats.

“But we will work very hard at CIA and with all of our partners to try to provide the kind of strategic warning to others in the U.S. government that enables them and us to address that threat if it starts to materialize,” he promised.

That same month, McKenzie told Congress taking out terrorists from longer range is “going to be extremely difficult to do it, but it will not be impossible.” 

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray testified to the House Homeland Security Committee last week that he worried terrorists “will have an opportunity to reconstitute, plot, inspire in a space that’s much harder for us to collect intelligence and operate against than was the case previously.”

No boots on the ground

Then there’s the matter of America no longer having boots on the ground or bases in the region.

Austin appeared to confirm a Wall Street Journal report that Milley asked Russia for “clarification” about the offer to use Russian bases in central Asia for over-the-horizon missions in Afghanistan after Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) asked him about the request. “I can assure you that, you know, we are not seeking Russia’s permission to do anything,” Austin said. “General Milley can speak for himself, but I believe that he asked for clarification what that offer was.” 

Last week, Milley and his Russian counterpart held a six-hour meeting in Helsinki over which that topic loomed large, according to the Associated Press’s Lolita C. Baldor.

“[T]he U.S. and allies want basing agreements, overflight rights and increased intelligence-sharing with nations closer to Afghanistan, such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan,” she reported.

“So far there are no indications of any progress. Moscow maintains a tight grip on the Central Asian nations and opposes a Western presence there,” Baldor noted.

Tuesday’s hearing was the first time the top decision-makers at the Pentagon faced questioning about the end of the longest U.S. shooting war. They’ll be back before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

What's happening now

Yellen predicts Treasury to run out of funding by Oct. 18

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says she’ll oppose Jerome Powell for another term as Fed chair, Rachel Siegel reports. During a hearing this morning of the Senate Banking Committee, “Warren pointed to Powell’s record on banking regulation and steps taken by the central bank to ease rules on the banking system put in place after the Great Recession. ‘Your record gives me grave concern,’ Warren said. ‘And that makes you a dangerous man to head up the Fed, and it’s why I will oppose your renomination.’”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States will run out of debt ceiling flexibility on Oct. 18. “It is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date,” Yellen wrote in a letter to Pelosi.

• “If Congress doesn’t raise the limit, the Treasury Department will not have the capability to pay all of its bills. Yellen’s new letter lays out that this crunch will really tighten after Oct. 18. She called on Congress to act as swiftly as possible, an overture she has tried for weeks without much success,” Jeff Stein reports.
• “We know from previous debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States for years to come,” Yellen wrote. “Failure to act promptly could also result in substantial disruptions to financial markets, as heightened uncertainty can exacerbate volatility and erode investor confidence.”

The gunman who murdered five employees at the Capital Gazette newspaper will serve multiple consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, Emily Davies and Katie Mettler report. 

Lunchtime reads from The Post

Grisham dishes

As Trump hints at a 2024 comeback, democracy advocates fear a “worst-case scenario." "Democrats and democracy experts are grappling with what such a campaign — and a potential second Trump presidency — would mean for the country,” Ashley Parker reports. 

• “In recent weeks, Trump has maneuvered to firmly establish himself as the predominant and most powerful figure in Republican politics. He has injected his voice into federal and state campaigns, endorsing several secretary of state candidates who embraced his false fraud claims and worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And while still banned from Twitter, he has issued a flurry of angry tweet-like statements through his political action committee. … He has also reemerged at rallies, appearing last Saturday in Perry, Ga., with another rally planned for Oct. 9, at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.” 
• “The threats to democracy that Trump critics envision are largely twofold. One real risk, they say, is that four years after the failed Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump and his supporters emerge in 2024 more sophisticated and successful in their efforts to steal an election.”
• “The second possible scenario experts envision is more insidious, they say, a sort of slow-boiling frog of American democracy. In this case, Trump — or an acolyte with similarly anti-democratic sensibilities — runs and wins legitimately in 2024, emerging newly emboldened and focused on retribution. Then, the new president, intent on strengthening his own position and punishing critics, begins remaking the political and electoral system, using legal means to consolidate power and erode democratic institutions.”

Trump played tough with Russia’s Vladimir Putin when cameras were around, while Putin toyed with his insecurities, according to a new book by former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. During the 2019 Group of 20 Summit, Grisham saw “Trump lean toward Putin that day and tell him: ‘Okay, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes. But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.’ It’s just one of many telling interactions detailed by Grisham in her new book,” Jada Yuan and Josh Dawsey report.

• In her book, Grisham — who also served as Melania Trump’s chief of staff — alleges a litany of misdeeds by Trump: “from ogling a young female staffer, to orchestrating lies for the public, to attempting to ban the news media from the White House compound.”
• “Grisham even claims to know dirt on Trump’s hair, which she says he cuts himself with ‘a huge pair of scissors that could probably cut a ribbon at an opening of one of his properties."

A coalition of Native American tribes is urging Biden to take “immediate action” to restore protections to Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, which the Trump administration cut, Joshua Partlow reports. In a letter, the coalition “warns that any more delay allows further degradation of sacred sites and former Indigenous settlements from mining, grazing, looting and other threats.” 

• “Tribal activists and conservationists have become increasingly frustrated that Biden, who campaigned on reversing Trump’s rollbacks of protections for national monuments, has not yet used his authority to restore their original boundaries. Trump shrank Bears Ears along with another national monument in southeastern Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante.”
• In June, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland “recommended to the White House expanding the boundaries of the two monuments, while reimposing fishing restrictions Trump lifted in a third site.” Despite those recommendations, Biden “has not yet announced his intentions.”

… and beyond

131 federal judges broke the law by hearing cases where they had a financial interest, the Wall Street Journal’s James Grimaldi, Coulter Jones and Joe Palazzolo report. Judges “have improperly failed to disqualify themselves from 685 court cases around the nation since 2010. The jurists were appointed by nearly every president from Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump.” 

The Taliban’s new chancellor barred women from Kabul University. “As long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work. Islam first,” Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat said, per the New York Times’s Cora Engelbrecht and Sharif Hassan.

“Larry Hogan’s audacious bet: A Trump critic could win the GOP’s 2024 nod,” writes Politico’s Alex Isenstadt. Hogan is “lending his help to Republicans in states filled with suburban voters who bolted the party during the Trump era. Over the past few weeks, Hogan has campaigned for Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Glenn Youngkin and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.” 

Coronavirus

New York governor declares health-care staffing ‘emergency’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared a “disaster emergency” amid a staffing shortage crisis prompted by vaccine resisters 

• Hocul late Monday “signed an executive order that officials hope could offer some short-term reprieve with staffing shortages. In the six-page order, she temporarily changed the state’s rules to more easily allow health-care workers from other states and countries to begin practicing in New York, among other things,” Eli Rosenberg reports. 
• The shortage was likely spurred because “tens of thousands of health-care workers in New York are likely to have refused a coronavirus vaccine before a state requirement went into effect on Monday, serving as a preview of resistance that the Biden administration’s vaccine requirements will face on a bigger scale in coming weeks.”

Abortion laws in the U.S. compare to those in the world, visualized

“In the last three decades, countries around the world have made it easier to legally get an abortion. In parts of the United States, it’s gotten harder.” See how more countries and their exceptions compare in our analysis.

Hot on the left

Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, is considering running for New York governor, challenging Hochul (D), New York Magazine’s Hunter Walker reports. Hochul, Williams argues “enabled” Cuomo. Just three years ago, Williams came within seven points of beating Hochul for lieutenant governor. But Hochul isn’t the only one Williams has to worry about. “Looming over both of them is Attorney General Letitia James, whose office commissioned the sexual-harassment report that ended Cuomo’s tenure. Williams and James have been close since they represented nearby council districts in Central Brooklyn.” 

Hot on the right

Trump’s spiteful support for Democrat Stacey Abrams over Gov. Brian Kemp (R) is sparking midterms fear among Georgia Republicans. During a rally this weekend, Trump said Georgia would be better off with Abrams than Kemp, CNN reports. Trump’s quasi-endorsement of Abrams “reveals the diffidence among [GOP] leaders about how to proceed. ‘I think the most notable part is the quiet of everyone in the GOP in Georgia,’ said Erick Erickson, an Atlanta-based talk radio host. ‘No one agrees with him. No one is endorsing it. But no one is vocally pushing back, either.’”

Other GOP leaders publicly decried Trump's endorsement:

Today in Washington

Biden has no public events in his schedule. 

In closing

It’s Fat Bear Week! What’s that, you ask? Per Natalie Compton, it is a “welcome distraction from life’s woes.” It’s also a “single-elimination tournament from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 between brown bears in Katmai National Park and Preserve that are fattening up for winter. The last two beefy contenders battle in the finals (on the Internet, not real life) for the title of Fattest Bear on Fat Bear Tuesday.” Fans can vote here. 

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.