Mr. Chair, that's another great question, and it speaks to the intelligence that we talked about before, about its becoming increasingly apparent that the Afghan government would not be able to hold on, but we were not sure about the timing.
We can look at historical analogies, which are always useful. In 1989 when the Soviet Union pulled out, there were many forecasts that Afghanistan would fall immediately, but the government held on for three years because the money kept following. In 1842, with the British in Kabul, it changed overnight, and the city turned against them. And so historical analogies in this case didn't exactly play out.
However, with the number of government forces that were moving back into Kabul, there was a sense that, yes, there would be the ability to hold on to the capital city for longer than actually was the case.
Yes, there was a certain degree of surprise even though the intelligence was showing that there was some inevitability to this, but I also think the Taliban were surprised by this, by the rapidity of their victory, and we've seen some intelligence to indicate that as well.