US intelligence services and the Pentagon had previously presented extremely broad time frames for a possible collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government, which ranged from a couple of months to two years. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban* last Sunday thus came as a complete surprise to many in Washington, according to media reports.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin claimed that no one imagined the Afghan government would fall in only 11 days, as the whole thing was “very rapid,” he said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week.”
Early US intelligence projections on how long the Afghan government could hold off the Taliban following a military withdrawal differed substantially, the Pentagon chief noted.
When asked if the United States’ withdrawal planning was “acceptable and appropriate,” Austin said he believed so, “based upon, what we were looking at and the inputs to the plan,” before criticizing the previous administration of Donald Trump for putting the country in a situation where there were “no good options.”
Austin’s comments come in light of a week of unrest in Afghanistan, during which the US military worked to remove American people and Afghan allies from the region as the Taliban’s attack intensified.
Around 17,000 individuals have been evacuated from Afghanistan in the last week, according to Pentagon statements, and around 22,000 have been evacuated since the end of July. Around 2,500 Americans have been rescued from the war-torn nation so far.
According to media reports, Americans and Afghan civilians are increasingly being subjected to violence and intimidation as they travel to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, which remains the only way out of the chaos of the Afghan capital.
The Biden administration has been lambasted for its handling of the Afghan crisis, with many questioning whether the president should have gone ahead with his decision to withdraw US forces from the country ahead of the Taliban’s intensified onslaught and the subsequent takeover.
After a months-long campaign, the Taliban took control of Kabul on August 15, forcing the civilian government to fall.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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