While the CIA has reportedly warned of the danger of a rapid collapse in Afghanistan, a military commander denied that the United States had intelligence indicating this.
The Taliban’s quick seizure of power in Afghanistan came as a surprise to most people. In the US, one of the big questions is why this could not have been predicted – although intelligence sources claim that they were already warned about this.
to me NBC News Current and former CIA employees claim that the intelligence agency warned of the danger of a rapid collapse of the Afghan government after the United States and NATO began withdrawing.
According to one source, the CIA’s description of the “worst case scenario” was “very close to what actually happened.”
Does not take self-criticism
However, the head of the military command, Mark Milley, claims that the United States has no intelligence describing such an outcome.
And Thursday evening, US President Joe Biden said in an interview with News letters That chaos was inevitable.
When asked by journalist George Stephanopoulos if the US exit from Afghanistan could have been handled better and without errors, Biden answered “No.”
– I don’t think this could have been handled in such a way that, looking back, you could have gotten us out of there without there being a mess. Biden makes it clear that I don’t see how this should have happened.
– they work together
Milley said during a Pentagon news conference that the United States understands that the Taliban can quickly regain power, but that “quickly” in their opinion means weeks, months or years.
There was nothing I or anyone else saw to suggest that the Afghan army and their government should collapse within eleven days, Milly claims.
President Biden acknowledges that they also did not know what the Taliban would do to prevent people from leaving the country.
– What are they doing now? They’re cooperating, they’re letting American citizens out, American employees getting out, embassy staff getting out, etc., but we have a bigger problem getting those who helped us while we were there, Biden says.
NBC News reported that military leaders were “angry” at Biden and his security team because they wanted to get the Afghans out of danger as early as May, but refused to do so.
– Easy selection
Biden was asked directly by Stephanopoulos if he believed it was intelligence, planning, judgment, or execution that failed.
Listen, it was an easy choice. When you have a government in Afghanistan, a head of government, who jumps in a plane and goes to another country, when you saw the massive collapse of the Afghan forces that we trained, up to 300,000 of them, just take out their gear and leave — that was, you know, what happened. This was simply what happened.
So the question from the start was whether we should stick to the time we planned, extend until September 1, or send in significantly more troops.
– If I said “we’ll stay”, we’d be ready to send more soldiers from Hell, says Biden.
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