00:00Jerry.
00:04So, Pope Leo has made some strident comments about the war in Iran.
00:08And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently put out a statement suggesting that the war does not fit
00:14the requirements of just war theory.
00:16And I wondered if the Pentagon had thought about this war against the terrorist regime in Iran in terms of
00:24the framework of a just war,
00:25and if either one of you could talk about that.
00:27And then just my second question would be, the Pentagon recently, this week, gave well-deserved award upgrades to the
00:39members of golf company 2-1 Marines
00:42who served at HKIA and Abbey Gate during the withdrawal and evacuation.
00:46I wonder if you, Mr. Secretary, could speak a little bit about that and maybe give us a little bit
00:52more in terms of what to expect
00:55from this Afghanistan review in terms of further proper recognition and proper accountability?
01:03On the first question, Pope's going to do his thing.
01:06That's fine.
01:07We know what our mission is.
01:08We know what authority we have.
01:10We're very clear about that.
01:11We follow that.
01:12The orders of the president.
01:13We've got lawyers all over the place looking at what we're doing and why we're doing it,
01:17and given us every authority necessary under the Constitution and under our laws to execute it.
01:21So we feel very confident across the spectrum about what we're doing and why we're doing it,
01:26and the legal justification that we're following in order to do it.
01:30You mentioned the Marines at Abbey Gate.
01:33And what we've undertaken at this department is a historic Afghanistan review.
01:39So we have, over the course of months, reviewed what happened leading up to and including the events at Abbey
01:44Gate
01:44and the disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan.
01:46There's never actually been a full accounting in this department of the decisions that were made.
01:50There's been sort of papered over congressional attempts, but never a real deep dive
01:54where we brought everybody in to talk about what happened and why it happened.
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