Two years ago today, the last American military planes left the Kabul airport, completing

the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The U.S. has top diplomat in Afghanistan, Russ Wilson, was on the final flight out.

It's a very somber, absolute quiet.

He was utterly exhausted and everybody is thinking about what we'd left.

He had been at the airport for weeks, one of the only safe havens from the Taliban's takeover.

He described the chaotic scene.

Afghan mobs essentially got on to the Tarmac, thousands or many, many hundreds, at least.

Just streaming through airport security checkpoints, those soldiers stayed abandoned

their post.

You can just walk in, and Afghans did.

We didn't know who they were.

We didn't know if they had weapons.

Virtually from the time of my arrival on the afternoon of the 15th to close to the 30th,

we got, I got, my staff got, senior military people got, mid-level military people got,

hundreds, and hundreds of phone calls, texts, emails, every hour.

That's from the podcast in the room with Peter Bergen.

After the break, host Peter Bergen and Brezhna Musazai join us as we take a look back on

the U.S. war in Afghanistan after two years.

We also look closer at what's happening in the country now.

I'm Jen White.

You're listening to the 1A podcast where we get to the heart of the story.

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