Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.
The conditions on the ground, as I said before, were tenuous, chaotic and desperate. I think you're well aware of that. Our forces were working on the ground in that chaotic environment.
Going back to separating in two phases, prior to the fall of Kabul, we were working in support to ensure we could evacuate. Once Kabul fell, we then had to conduct a contested non-combatant evacuation.
Let's come back to the fall of Kabul. We talked about the strategic intelligence that we led. I think it's quite consistent—with all the allies it was the same thing. In April, we were looking at six months, and then as it got closer, we knew it was going to fall. But I think everyone, including the Taliban, were surprised at how rapidly Kabul fell.
That being said, I want to talk about the tactical intelligence on the ground with our folks. We were able to execute the evacuation of our embassy, and were the only ally to do that because we had the tactical intelligence capabilities on the ground, we had the forces with the capabilities and we had air power to do that. The only reason we weren't there after Kabul fell was because we were the only embassy able to evacuate because of the intelligence we had, the capabilities we had on the ground and the air power we had available. Our allies weren't able to do that. They had significant forces left on the ground because they couldn't get them out early enough. They would have, if they could have.
Moving on to the second part, the contested non-combatant evacuation, working with our allies, again, we reinserted capabilities on August 19 and started flying that day. Our first flight out that day was full. It had allies on board. It had Canadian entitled personnel. It had Afghans from other nations, as well as cargo, because we were part of the allied airlift. As we ramped up the operation, as our folks and the capabilities were inserted, we had more and more Canadian entitled personnel inside the airport at that point. At that time, we started to fill the planes up, which you saw over that period of time. Between August 19 and 26, you saw us evacuate almost 3,000 personnel, by effectively allowing our folks on the ground to command and make the hard decisions that they were facing.
The last point I'd reiterate is that the folks on the ground were working tirelessly, 24-7, for over a week, to make sure we got as many folks out as we could after the fall of Kabul. They should really be commended for the effort they did on the ground, not only the special capabilities, but my task force on the ground, as well as our air crews, who worked tirelessly to save as many Afghans as we could.