Scott Perry, a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, has been pushing both Milley and McKenzie on specifics about a failed drone strike that killed 10 innocent people in Kabul just days before the US pulled out of Afghanistan.

Perry asks whether they were concerned with the intelligence they were getting that was leading them to the targets.

Mckenzie says they had descriptions of the targets. But Perry keeps pushing about the chain of command and how much intelligence they had before the attack.

He then talks about how it took the Pentagon five days to admit it had made a mistake.

He asks Milley when he knew and whom he told.

Milley says that he knew four or five days after the attack, and that if Perry is asking him whether he told President Biden, "I did not".

Milley then rebukes Perry when he says the administration was lying to the American people for five days, saying that lying implies they were being purposefully deceitful.

What happened to Afghanistan after 2021?published at 18:42 Greenwich Mean Time 19 March

18:42 GMT 19 March

Frank Gardner
BBC News, Security Correspondent

Afghanistan is in a state of permanent, slow-motion humanitarian crisis.

Shunned by most of the world since the Taliban seized back power in August 2021, foreign investment has all but dried up, unemployment has soared and human rights, especially for women, are in a dire state.

Early hopes that this second iteration of Taliban rule would be more benign than their first one in 1996-2001 have evaporated; the Taliban have reneged on all their promises to respect the rights of women to go to work and enjoy a full education.

On the plus side, they have cracked down on opium production and now that they are in power, the Taliban no longer constitute the deadly insurgency they were before 2021.

Yet their relationship with Al-Qaida, the globally proscribed terror group that plotted the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan, remains murky.

The AQ leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was discovered living comfortably in Kabul and was killed in a US drone strike in 2022. Pakistan has been carrying out airstrikes on militant bases inside the Afghan border.

There remains an ongoing threat of terrorism from the regional branch of ISIS known as IS-Khorasan or IS-K, but the Taliban have largely been able to contain them.

We've been hearing from Democrat Jason Crow, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

He refers to the Afghan Allies Protection Act, which he has sponsored and which he struggled to pass, despite bipartisan support.

"We have an obligation to get them out," he says of those who are still in Afghanistan.

"We can still do right, by passing this bill and providing a pathway for our friends to get out."

Earlier, the chairman, Michael McCaul said there are a number of new Afghan special visas in the budget agreement, but larger reforms are still facing ongoing debate, more than 18 months on.

An interesting political note here.

Milley says that every single piece of American-owned equipment was either taken back from Afghanistan or destroyed.

"Every piece of American equipment, that the American military own, came out with us with Scott Miller or he destroyed it on sight and that's a fact," Milley tells the committee.

Miller was the Commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan at the time.

This flies in the face of a popular attack line by Republicans, that the Biden administration left behind American-owned equipment that could be used by the Taliban.

Image source, Getty Images

The Doha Agreement is once again being discussed. That's the peace agreement orchestrated by Donald Trump's administration and signed by the Taliban.

Milley says the Doha Agreement had conditions that might have worked, but no one could explain how it would work.

"Here's the problem: For two president, nobody that I recall - nobody, zero - could coherently argue how it would end, and how those diplomatic conditions would be obtained," Milley says.

This left them in a difficult situation for the withdrawal, he adds.

Both the generals who are testifying said that the conditions of the Doha Agreement were not met, meaning the Taliban attacks on Afghan forces increased.

Former President Trump has maintained that he would have kept military forces in place until conditions were met.

We heard earlier today that Milley wanted to keep 2500 US troops in Afghanistan.

Senior Republican Christopher Smith asks Gen Milley how many Americans and Afghan allies were killed, or left behind, during the withdrawal.

"I'll be candid, I don't know how many Americans were left behind, because the starting number was never clear," the former chairman of the joint chiefs says.

Milley says the same is true for at-risk Afghans and Afghan troops who worked with US forces, as lists of who they were "varied so widely as to be inaccurate".

"I'm not sure, even today, about the accuracy of all those numbers."

Pressed on whether they were jailed or killed, Milley tells Smith that some were tracked down and killed, "some of them in pretty brutal ways".

He adds that some escaped through "various means" while others have "kept their heads down" in Afghanistan since.

If today's hearing feels familiar, it is.

Democrat lawmaker Gregory Meeks says there is no new information coming from McKenzie and Milley's testimonies.

The two retired generals agree with him. They've both testified in hearings on this issue in the past.

Meeks then argues that Congress needs to look at the last 20 years, not just the withdrawal - which Milley again agrees with.

Milley also agrees that the final months of US involvement were defined by the Doha agreement, negotiated by the Trump administration.

This angle has been repeated a few times now for the Democrats. The Republicans, meanwhile, have been pointing at Biden for failures in the withdrawal.

Image source, Getty Images

Chairman Michael McCaul ends his questions by saying he believes "accountability ensures mistakes of the past are not repeated".

"But from where I sit, this president and administration refuse to admit their failures," he says.

The senior Republican congressman on the committee concludes by saying he launched this investigation "to make sure the mistakes made in Afghanistan never, ever happen again".

Chairman McCaul is asking about the delay to issue the evacuation order for non-combatants.

McKenzie says that every embassy in Afghanistan has an evacuation plan, but the US did not have the authority to execute the plan until August. The Afghanistan war ended on 30 August, 2021.

Milley and McKenzie agree with McCaul that the plan for the withdrawal of non-military forces was "too little, too late".

There are special plans for civilians to be removed from countries in specific situations know as Noncombatant Evacuation Operations (NEO).

The US Marines define NEOs as: "The ordered (mandatory) or authorized (voluntary) departure of civilian noncombatants and nonessential military personnel from danger in an overseas country to a designated safe haven, typically within the continental United States".

General Kenneth McKenzie has just spoken to the House members.

As former commander of US Central Command (Centcom), he was in charge of all US forces in the Middle East and had direct oversight of the military operations and withdrawal.

He also honoured the troops and those who died in the Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport, describing it as a "tragic event".

McKenzie says culpability and responsibility for the deadly attack does not lie with those on the ground in Afghanistan.

He adds that the failures were those of policy- political, diplomatic and military - putting them in that situation.

General McKenzie says the evacuation of non-combatants was delayed by the State Department and White House, which led to the "tragic" evacuation operation at the airport.

It was combat operation of the most difficult sort, he says, carried out in contact with the enemy.

Image source, Getty Images

Milley tells the hearing that he the evacuation effort was "incredible" but says in his opinion the decision came too late.

He says, "We helped build an army, a state but we could not build a nation".

Milley calls that a "strategic failure".

He says the US military provided hope for 20 years to the Afghan people and protected the US from attacks.

He says to the American people - "Your troops did you proud".

Milley says to the veterans in the room, "hold your head high" and that they worked selflessly and professionally.

Gen Milley says the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan occurred across a decade and there was no single factor that contributed to the outcome

But he also emphasises that he believed - and told officials at the time - that a fast withdrawal at the end would lead to the rapid fall of the Afghan military and government, either through a total civil war like in the 1990s, or a fast Taliban takeover.

Milley goes on to say he provided this analysis, alongside recommendations of other senior US commanders, that the US "needed to maintain a minimum force of 2,500 troops on the ground" to sustain Afghan security forces and its government while diplomatic agreements signed in Qatar could be met.

"Without this support, it was my view at the time, that it was a matter of when not if the Afghan government would collapse and the Taliban would take control."

Image source, Getty Images

General Mark Milley begins his testimony saying he wants to give a "holistic understanding" of the efforts in Afghanistan.

He pays tribute to the fallen soldiers at Abbey Gate as well as to the "tens of thousands who suffered the invisible wounds of war".

Miller adds that he wants his testimony to help "everyone get answers" on what happened.

"This is personal to me," he tells the hearing.

Before we look at General Mark Milley's opening statement, there was one key thing to note from lawmaker Gregory Meeks.

Both McCaul and Meeks have mentioned providing Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans and the need for Congress to provide a greater number of them.

In his opening statement, Meeks says they will have an agreement in the upcoming budget deal to help with these visas.

Meeks says proper oversight of US involvement in Afghanistan requires an "honest lookback" at the entire 20-year history of the war, rather than "just a few months" of the chaotic withdrawal.

The leading Democrat on the committee notes this took place over four separate presidential administrations.

He tells former generals Milley and McKenzie that he looks forward to their "continued commitment to truth and transparency today".

Meeks says their testimony will "help us learn from our successes and mistakes", including from the "tragic bombing" at Abbey Gate of Kabul airport during the withdrawal - which killed 13 US soldiers and more than 170 Afghans.

Next up is the opening statement from former General Mark Milley.

Ranking member Gregory Meeks, the leading democrat, has just spoken.

He is expected to defend President Biden today and condemn Donald Trump for making the Doha agreement with the Taliban.

Meeks says there was no comprehensive withdrawal plan outlined by the Trump government.

He says that when Biden took office he conducted a review and had to decide between continuing with the withdrawal agreed under Trump, or break the agreement.

Meeks says breaking the agreement would have taken them back to war in Afghanistan and put their servicemen's lives in danger.

He says Taliban made it clear there would be a resumption of hostilities if the agreement was broken.

Michael McCaul thanks the two former army generals for agreeing to appear voluntarily today, despite what he claims was US officials from the Department of Defense "actively trying to limit your testimony".

He goes on to mention that some "gold star families" (the relatives of killed US soldiers) are at the hearing today, thanking them for joining the committee.

McCaul ends his opening remarks by reading a list of the names of the US soldiers killed in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Committee chair Michael McCaul has continued his opening remarks, saying the failures of the withdrawal damaged the reputation of the US.

He cites the deaths of US servicemen and Afghans who died trying to evacuate as proof of the withdrawal failings.

McCaul adds, "As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

Civilians hungry and lacking medical care since US withdrewpublished at 17:14 Greenwich Mean Time 19 March

17:14 GMT 19 March

Yogita Limaye
South Asia correspondent

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is crippling – two third of Afghanistan’s people don’t know where their next meal will come from.

Rates of malnutrition among children have soared to unprecedented highs.

We will never know the scale of the disaster that’s unfolding because no one is counting.

Over the past year and a half, whenever I’ve visited, I’ve asked people what they ate over the past two days.

“Dry bread and tea"’ is the answer I most frequently get.Prior to the Taliban takeover, three quarters of state funding came from foreign money, much of it from the US, given directly to the previous Afghan government.

Image source, EPA

This money financed nearly all hospitals and medical facilities in the country.

It was stopped in August 2021, triggering an economic collapse, and over the past two years I’ve seen first-hand how it’s virtually incapacitated medical care in the country.

Humanitarian agencies stepped in to provide a critical bridge, but they are facing a massive funding shortfall now, resulting in big cuts in aid.

The hearing on Capitol Hill has begun, with the two former generals set to give opening remarks shortly.

Ranking member of the committee, Republican Michael McCaul from Texas, is opening proceedings by laying out criticisms of the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021.

You can watch live by pressing the play button at the top of this page.