U.S. intelligence warned Afghan forces have been more and more fragile in run-up to Taliban takeover
Washington — A number of U.S. intelligence assessments issued this spring and summer time warned that Afghanistan’s safety forces appeared more and more fragile and that its authorities might battle to resist a Taliban-led incursion, based on present and former officers acquainted with their content material.
These warnings adopted years of persistently pessimistic assessments of the Afghan army’s resilience and its capacity or willingness to fend off Taliban fighters. Studies from the CIA have been usually among the many bleakest issued, and a few have been at odds with extra favorable Pentagon assessments of the power of Afghan safety forces, three former intelligence officers mentioned.
Questions on what the Biden administration was informed about situations on the bottom because the U.S. continued its army drawdown have arisen rapidly and with fervor, particularly as footage of rosier pronouncements made in current weeks by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has circulated.
On July 8, Mr. Biden mentioned it was “extremely unlikely” that the Taliban could be “overrunning all the pieces and proudly owning the entire nation.” In congressional testimony in June, Mr. Blinken mentioned, “If there’s a vital deterioration in safety — that might effectively occur, we have mentioned this earlier than — I do not assume it may be one thing that occurs from a Friday to a Monday.”
“I’d not essentially equate the departure of forces in July, August, or by early September with some form of rapid deterioration within the state of affairs,” Blinken mentioned.
Biden administration officers have since admitted that the sudden collapse of Afghanistan’s authorities and the autumn of its capital, Kabul, occurred sooner than anticipated, and have mainly positioned blame on Afghan political management.
In a public tackle on Monday, the president mentioned he stood “squarely behind” his choice to tug in another country, arguing there was “by no means a very good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”
However the president’s glancing references to the chaos unfolding in Kabul fueled criticism that his administration was badly mishandling a preventable disaster, and lawmakers of each events have speculated that an intelligence failure could have been responsible. A number of congressional committees have already pledged to carry public hearings on the matter.
Officers acquainted with the intelligence group’s experiences described them as more and more dire, particularly because the Taliban steadily notched army successes and seized management of districts earlier in the summertime.
“This was coverage. This end result was all the time possible, and this timeline was all the time within the vary of prospects, albeit on the far finish of that vary,” a congressional official acquainted with current U.S. intelligence assessments mentioned.
“We persistently recognized the danger of a fast collapse of the Afghan authorities. We additionally grew extra pessimistic in regards to the authorities’s survival because the preventing season progressed,” a senior U.S. intelligence official informed CBS Information. “This was much less a problem of Afghan army capabilities and extra a mirrored image of Afghan management, cohesion and willpower.”
“That mentioned, the Afghan authorities unraveled much more rapidly than we anticipated,” the official mentioned.
On the Pentagon on Wednesday, Normal Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, pushed again on solutions that there was intelligence warning of an imminent collapse of the Afghan authorities and safety forces.
Milley mentioned intelligence experiences indicated three attainable situations within the wake of a U.S. withdrawal: a “fast collapse” of the federal government, a full-blown civil battle or a negotiated settlement.
“Nonetheless, the timeframe of a ‘fast collapse’ — that was extensively estimated. It ranged from weeks, months, and even years, following our departure,” Milley mentioned. “There was nothing that I or anybody else noticed that indicated a collapse of this military and this authorities in 11 days.”
Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, mentioned in a briefing on Tuesday that the administration knew a Taliban takeover was attainable.
“We have been clear-eyed getting into once we made this choice that it was attainable that the Taliban would find yourself in command of Afghanistan. We have been clear-eyed about that,” he mentioned.
Michael Morell, former CIA performing director and a CBS Information senior nationwide safety contributor, mentioned intelligence assessments in regards to the timing of the Afghan authorities’s attainable collapse — which earlier this month have been reported to be between 30 and 90 days — would possible have been pegged to U.S. making public its dedication to withdraw in April.
“When does the depend start? Is it when the final boot leaves? No, it is not. It is when the announcement that you just’re leaving is made,” he mentioned.
“That is when the psychology modifications for the Taliban — they know at that second with certainty that they’ll win, and the Afghan safety forces know at that second with certainty that they’ll lose,” Morell mentioned.
“The Afghan safety forces have been far more succesful than the Taliban, however the Taliban had all the desire and the Afghan safety forces simply had none,” he added. “It seems that army functionality shouldn’t be a very powerful factor in a battle.”
