Unfortunately the president’s self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline means that many of the people to whom he made that promise will still be trapped in Afghanistan after evacuation flights end. To keep at least part of his promise, the president needs to authorize clandestine exfiltrations by declaring to the relevant congressional committees that continuing the evacuation is in the national interest.

Such a declaration, commonly called a “finding,” is delivered to the congressional committees with oversight of covert operations. It would create and formally authorize a clandestine program, bringing with it resources, manpower, money and congressional buy-in, so that the Central Intelligence Agency and others can achieve the declared objective of evacuating Americans and Afghan allies.

Weeks before the president’s public promise, scores if not hundreds of U.S. veterans volunteered to rescue their countrymen trapped in Afghanistan as well as those Afghans who fought with and for us. Frustrated “that our own government didn’t do this,” one of the volunteers told ABC News, “we did what we should do, as Americans.”