The Biden administration has presided over disaster after disaster, but the Afghanistan pullout perhaps stands out above them all. During the rushed, chaotic removal of our forces, a suicide bomber killed 130 people, including 13 U.S. service members; afterward, billions of dollars of military equipment were left behind and the ruthless Taliban quickly took power.
As we have reported, House Republicans have been fighting to view a State Department “dissent cable,” and after resistance from Secretary of State Antony Blinken broken by the threat of charging him with contempt, they’re finally getting to read it. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was the first to get access, and he says what he read is stunning:
What we saw was their prediction, with great accuracy, of exactly what was going to happen and what the outcome would be if they did not change their directions.
We saw a response from the office of the State Department saying, “We hear you, and we agree, basically, we don’t take it lightly.” And then, obviously, we know what they did and didn’t do, which was totally insufficient for the warning that was given.
Twenty-three staffers and diplomats signed the dissent cable, but President Biden and his administration downplayed the danger leading up to the fiasco and then afterward ludicrously tried to blame it on everything from former President Donald Trump to the Afghan military. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin even somehow said “I don’t have any regrets” when questioned by a House subcommittee in March.
Issa charges that the administration allowed the tragedy to occur [bolding mine]:
They redacted the specific names, but we now know that many of them were senior executive surrogates, meaning people that are paid at the highest level in the State Department. They knew and understood that there was no way that the Afghan military was going to defend successfully. They did not disagree with that, and as a result, they knew that Kabul would fall within weeks, that the Taliban would do what they have done, which is to continue to kill and persecute individuals, and they allowed it to happen….
Every prediction came through, including the quick collapse of the Afghan army.
Issa’s communications director Jonathan Wilcox was equally outraged:
This obliterates the administration’s big lie on Afghanistan – that this could not have been foretold, nobody could have seen this coming, nothing could have done to prevent it.
We know it was received. We know it wasn’t followed. Their personnel on the ground saw this, reported it, warned them, and were ignored.
Biden failed 13 servicemembers that August in 2021, he failed the people of Afghanistan, and he failed America. Now it’s clear that he was warned–but he simply ignored that warning because Joe Biden doesn’t care about the human costs of his reckless policies.
See also:
Marine Was Told to Stand Down During Afghanistan Withdrawal, Details Heartbreaking Experience
Taliban Making Hay With the Staggering Amount of Military Gear Left in Afghanistan