Biden talks about chaos in Afghanistan as blame game begins

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On Friday, US President Joe Biden will address the nation about the failed evacuation in Afghanistan as a war erupts, briefing his administration on who is responsible for the chaos in Kabul.

Tens of thousands of eligible American and Afghan citizens are struggling to get to the airport in the center of the capital, which is now under Taliban control, prompting growing public criticism from within the president’s own party.

The White House, US intelligence officials, diplomats, and the Pentagon are pointing fingers at each other, both publicly and through a series of harmful leaks, suggesting that the crisis resulted from poor planning, poor decision-making, and inaccurate assessments about the possibilities of this happening. The Taliban takeover is lightning fast.

As of Thursday, the United States has only evacuated 7,000 people since the Taliban seized control of the presidential palace on Sunday. The US did not say how many people would be evacuated, but about 11,000 US citizens have previously registered their presence in Afghanistan, while tens of thousands of Afghans who helped the US mission are also eligible for evacuation.

US defense officials say they have the capacity to transport 5,000 to 9,000 people per day from Kabul International Airport, but they operate only 2,000 per day. US officials attribute this to the slow processing of names by the State Department as well as Taliban checkpoints around the city preventing evacuees from reaching the airport.

Biden, who is due to deliver a speech from the White House at 1 p.m. ET, had committed to leaving in full by August 31, but hinted he might extend the schedule.

Bill Roggio, a military analyst who has been in contact with US citizens unable to reach the airport, said the US evacuation was “outrageous.”

“Six days after the fall of Kabul, there are still Americans trapped behind Taliban lines and every moment counts at this point,” he told the Financial Times. “The Taliban is effectively holding an unknown number of Americans hostage by the situation that has developed outside the airport, by not allowing safe passage to the airport.”

US military operations are stationed at the city’s airport. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said earlier this week that the United States does not have the ability to pick up large numbers of people from outside the airport.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the Taliban had told the US they were ready to provide safe passage for civilians to the airport, but he was not clear on the “exact timeline”.

He separately warned of the growing danger of jihadist attacks by the ISIS branch in eastern Afghanistan that views the United States and the Taliban as an enemy.

Sullivan said the administration has received reports of the Taliban turning away people from the airport or even beating them. We are discussing it in a channel with the Taliban to try and resolve those issues. We are concerned about whether that will continue to emerge in the coming days, he said earlier this week.

On Friday, NATO foreign ministers issued a statement calling on those in positions of authority in Afghanistan to respect and facilitate. . . Safe and orderly departures, including through Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.”

The crisis comes as Biden defends himself from criticism of incompetence amid the US withdrawal he has ordered. Biden told ABC News this week that he doesn’t know how the United States can “get out without making a mess.”

But US officials said the Biden administration has not prepared to evacuate citizens with Kabul under Taliban control, and many are frustrated by the lack of contingency planning.

On Thursday, it emerged that nearly two dozen State Department officials sent a classified cable directly to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in July, warning that the Taliban advance was far more imminent than other assessments had concluded. It was sent through the department’s secret “dissent channel”, indicating it was a minority view.

A person familiar with the contents of the memo, whose existence was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, said the cable was “immediately brought to the Secretary’s attention, and he personally agreed to respond.”

“We appreciated the drafters’ ideas, which reflected a lot of thought across the department and across the joint agencies,” the person added.

The leak came after Biden told ABC News that there was no consensus in the intelligence reports, which he said indicated the Taliban would likely take over by the end of the year. He added that his top military advisers were “divided” over the timetable for troop withdrawal, and said he did not believe anyone expected the Afghan National Forces to “collapse”.

Intelligence officials defended their assessments, noting that the timetable for Taliban takeover depends on the coherence of the Afghan national response. But some insiders said the assessments were not pessimistic enough and based on groupthink.

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