House Armed Services Chair Smith: We Need to ‘Go Outside of the Airport’ to Complete Evacuation, August 31 Deadline Won’t Work

On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Alex Witt Reports,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said that completing the evacuation of Afghanistan will clearly extend beyond the August 31 deadline and “We’re going to have to go outside of the airport in order to get the Americans and the SIV holders out.”

Smith said, “I don’t think that August 31 is going to work. I’ve spoken with Chairman Milley and Jake Sullivan yesterday about this, and I think it’s clear it’s going to take more time than August 31.”

He later added, “We’re going to have to go outside of the airport in order to get the Americans and the SIV holders out. They are going to struggle to get there because of ISIS, because of the Taliban, for a bunch of different reasons. I think we need more details on how the military, the U.S. government’s going to accomplish that.”

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