WASHINGTON, 23 August 2021, (TON):  The Pentagon will prepare recommendations for President Joe Biden on the issue of extending the evacuation from Afghanistan after August 31 closer to that date.

This was announced on Sunday by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in an interview with media.

He said in response to a related question “we will continue to assess the situation and will work hard to take out as many people as possible. As we approach this date, we will prepare recommendations for the president.”

At the same time, Austin avoided answering the question whether all American citizens and the Afghans collaborating with them would be removed from Afghanistan. Instead, he reiterated that the US military is making every effort to achieve this goal.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that nobody predicted the Afghan government “would fall in 11 days.”

Austin said “it was very difficult to predict with accuracy. This all occurred in a span of about 11 days. Nobody predicted that, you know, the government would fall in 11 days.”

Austin said that assessments he reviewed prior to the insurgent group’s takeover estimated it could be several months or one to two years before the Afghan government fell.