In the weeks leading up to the sacking of Kabul, the Biden Administration was “consistently informed” that the Taliban could quickly overwhelm the country and take the capital,” according to anonymous intelligence officials.
Multiple U.S. officials warned that a debacle reminiscent of the 1975 fall of Saigon (when helicopters had to evacuate diplomats from the U.S. embassy’s rooftop as the North Vietnamese Army stormed the South Vietnam capital) was in the making.
Joe Biden, nonetheless, plowed ahead with the plan, insisting that such a result was “highly unlikely.”
“[U.S.] leaders were told by the military it would take no time at all for the Taliban to take everything,” an anonymous U.S. intelligence official told ABC News. “No one listened.”
Other intelligence sources said that Biden and his team of advisers had reached their decision about the U.S. military’s withdrawal — which was all but completed on July 4 — based on a variety of factors that went beyond Kabul’s fate.
A senior congressional official who asked not to be named in order to discuss sensitive briefings told ABC News that intelligence officers had warned the U.S. leaders about a swift and total victory by the fundamentalist Taliban militants who had held power in Kabul during the late 1990s up until after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“The intelligence community assessment has always been accurate; they just disregarded it,” the official told ABC News, speaking about the Biden administration.
Just over one month ago, Biden said in a press conference that it was “highly unlikely” that the Afghan government would fall to the Taliban after the U.S. left, and forcefully denied that he had been briefed to that effect.
“The Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped, as well-equipped as any army in the world, and an air force, against something like 75,000 Taliban,” he said. “It is not inevitable.”
A reporter noted that his own intelligence advisors were warning him that the Afghan government would “likely collapse,”
“That’s not true,” Biden shot back. “They did not. They didn’t reach that conclusion.”
He went on to say that the Afghan government “clearly” had the capacity to sustain the government, and there was “no comparison whatsoever” between this withdrawal, and the 1975 withdrawal from Saigon.
“What you had was entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy,” he explained. “The Taliban is not the South—the North Vietnamese Army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstances where people are going to be lifted off the roof from an embassy of the United States in Afghanistan,” he added. “The likelihood that there is going to be a Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Joe Biden on July 8, 2021 — so, just over one month ago.pic.twitter.com/n9DhN6SKut
— Jerry Dunleavy 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) August 15, 2021
Biden on Saturday authorized the movement of 6,000 of U.S. troops to Kabul evacuate American officials still in the capital.
The Taliban, which has long called itself the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” announced they had entered Kabul soon after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday afternoon, setting off a rush to the city’s airport and a stepped-up evacuation of the U.S. embassy by a fleet of military helicopters guarded by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters orbiting the once-impenetrable Green Zone.
Reuters reported on Twitter Monday that according to “nearly a half dozen” administration officials, “there is increasing frustration and even anger with the way Biden has handled the evacuation from Kabul.”
Officials say the military for weeks had been telling the White House that they were ready to do more, in terms of basing and flights from evacuating Afghans, but a decision didn’t come until it was too late.
Officials tell Reuters that an address from Biden today, well after the Taliban military advances began, is far too late. They added that some of the defenses given by the White House, including NSA Sullivan earlier today, are baffling.
Officials tell Reuters that an address from Biden today, well after the Taliban military advances began, is far too late. They added that some of the defenses given by the White House, including NSA Sullivan earlier today, are baffling.
— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) August 16, 2021
A U.S. source in Afghanistan contacted Human Events reporter Jack Posobiec on Twitter Monday, telling him that for months, the daily intelligence reports indicated that “this was coming.”
Afghan Army personnel, he said, were surrendering by the hundreds, and sometimes even thousands to the Taliban.
“Biden was completely talking out of his ass because what he said COMPLETELY contradicted what was coming out of the [military intelligence] reports,” the source said.
Message from in-region US personnel:
For the last 2-3 months everything pointed to this coming
Biden lied about the intel pic.twitter.com/VTtr4V9880
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 16, 2021