FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Congressional testimony this week by the top Pentagon officials charged with the Afghanistan pullout made clear that President Joe Biden opted against their recommendation against completely withdrawing U.S. troops.

Instead, Biden insisted on a hasty pullout, leading to disastrous results. The advisers didn't seem proud about their assessment, nor did they try to sugarcoat the Pentagon's various missteps that blocked a successful end to the 20-year war.

In a Senate hearing Tuesday, questioners gave Gens. Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie no room for evasion when it came to the advice they gave Biden about the potential consequences of a full withdrawal. Milley has served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Though he wouldn't give specifics about his private conversations with them, Milley stated: "I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and I also recommended to Trump early in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time. Those were my personal views. I also had a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government."

McKenzie, head of the U.S. Central Command, agreed with Milley's assessment, though neither believed the Afghan military's collapse would come so quickly.

Biden not only rejected their advice, he proceeded to lie about it in an Aug. 18 ABC interview when he asserted that none of his advisers had recommended against the withdrawal.

The first step in any lessons-learned exercise is admitting that there are lessons still to be learned. Milley and McKenzie get that. Too bad Biden still doesn't.