Biden KNEW Taliban could take over Afghanistan, security advisor Jake Sullivan says

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Tuesday defended the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces and personnel from Afghanistan, saying the Biden administration acted on information it had ‘at the time’ and calling images of desperate allies ‘heartbreaking.’

A day after Biden returned to the White House from Camp David to address the nation, Sullivan said he and the security team took ‘responsibility’ for the administration’s decisions, and spoke repeatedly about the cost on Afghan allies of the U.S. in its 20-year war. 

‘The human toll of the end of the conflict in this way is real and it’s raw,’ he said. Sullivan said of himself and other policymakers: ‘We’re also people. This is tough stuff. There’s no doubt about it. But these are hard choices too.’

‘The human toll of the end of the conflict in this way is real and it’s raw,’ White House National Security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday amid the chaos in Afghanistan

With the administration under fire for failing to speed along an orderly evacuation after Biden announced the deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, Sullivan repeatedly pointed to other scenarios, each also grim. 

He said Biden was unwilling to surge more U.S. troops into Afghanistan to bolster the 2,500 troops in place following a drawdown in order to face another spring offensive by the Taliban.  

‘We made the judgements we made based on the information we had at the time while preparing for the alternative contingency,’ he said.

People wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 17, 2021

People wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 17, 2021

Thousands of Afghans rush to the Kabul International Airport as they try to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 17, 2021

Thousands of Afghans rush to the Kabul International Airport as they try to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 17, 2021

FALL OF KABUL: A TIMELINE OF THE TALIBAN’S FAST ADVANCE AFTER 40 YEARS OF CONFLICT

Feb. 29, 2020 Trump negotiates deal with the Taliban setting U.S. withdrawal date for May 1, 2021 

Nov. 17, 2020 Pentagon announces it will reduce troop levels to 2500 in Afghanistan

Jan. 15, 2020 Inspector general reveals ‘hubris and mendacity’ of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan 

Feb 3. 2021 Afghan Study Group report warns against withdrawing  ‘irresponsibly’

March Military command makes last-ditch effort to talk Biden out of withdrawal 

April 14 Biden announces withdrawal will be completed by Sept. 11 

May 4 – Taliban fighters launch a major offensive on Afghan forces in southern Helmand province. They also attack in at least six other provinces

May 11 – The Taliban capture Nerkh district just outside the capital Kabul as violence intensifies across the country

June 7 – Senior government officials say more than 150 Afghan soldiers are killed in 24 hours as fighting worsens. They add that fighting is raging in 26 of the country’s 34 provinces

June 22 – Taliban fighters launch a series of attacks in the north of the country, far from their traditional strongholds in the south. The UN envoy for Afghanistan says they have taken more than 50 of 370 districts

July 2 – The U.S. evacuates Bagram Airfield in the middle of the night 

July 5 – The Taliban say they could present a written peace proposal to the Afghan government as soon as August

July 21 – Taliban insurgents control about a half of the country’s districts, according to the senior U.S. general, underlining the scale and speed of their advance

July 25 – The United States vows to continue to support Afghan troops “in the coming weeks” with intensified airstrikes to help them counter Taliban attacks

July 26 – The United Nations says nearly 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in May and June in escalating violence, the highest number for those months since records started in 2009 

Aug. 6 – Zaranj in the south of the country becomes the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in years. Many more are to follow in the ensuing days, including the prized city of Kunduz in the north 

Aug. 13 – Pentagon insists Kabul is not under imminent threat 

Aug. 14 – The Taliban take the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and, with little resistance, Pul-e-Alam, capital of Logar province just 70 km (40 miles) south of Kabul. The United States sends more troops to help evacuate its civilians from Kabul as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says he is consulting with local and international partners on next steps

Aug. 15 – The Taliban take the key eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, effectively surrounding Kabul

Taliban insurgents enter Kabul, an interior ministry official says, as the United States evacuate diplomats from its embassy by helicopter

 

He indicated Biden was aware the Afghan regime, plagued by corruption and dysfunction, might not withstand a military onslaught once the U.S. pulled out – despite a series of officials attesting to the government’s ability to at least put up a fight.

‘We were clear eyed going in when we made this decision that it was possible that the Taliban would end up in control of it. We were clear eyed about that,’ Sullivan said.

‘Now, as the President said in his remarks yesterday, we did not anticipate [that it] would happen at this speed [but] we were planning for these potential contingencies,’ he said. 

‘The reason I say that at the outset that we knew it was possible they could take over and that had to be built into our calculus and making the determination as the president did to draw down our forces is because once the Taliban came into Kabul, we were still going to be faced with the situation, no matter if there were still U.S. troops on the ground or no U.S. troops on the ground,’ he said. 

He said Biden has ‘not yet spoken with any other world leaders’ since the fall of Kabul, but said other officials have been in touch with foreign counterparts.  

He acknowledged a ‘channel’ of communication of the Taliban, also alluded to by the Pentagon Tuesday.

Although the U.S. military has secured the airport, thousands of people seeking to flee the country remain stuck in their homes amid Taliban checkpoints.

He said the Taliban officials through the channel said they were ‘prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport and we intend to hold them to that commitment.’

Hit repeatedly with questions about why the U.S. couldn’t have spirited diplomats out sooner, Sullivan said the administration calculated it would send the wrong signal about the stability of the Afghan government. 

‘We as a national security team collectively take responsibility for every decision, good decision, every decision that doesn’t produce perfect outcomes,’ he said. 

Sullivan said Biden ‘is laser focused on accomplishing the core national security objectives of the United States’ to prevent further terrorist attacks. But he said it could be done without a residual force or fighting a war – although the U.S. also also is forfeiting substantial intelligence and allied capabilities through the hasty withdrawal.  

He repeatedly sought to explain the difficult choices President Biden was confronted with, and returned again and again to the human toll. 

‘When you work on any policy issue … the human costs and consequences loom large.’ He said images, which have included U.S. aircraft being swarmed by Afghans desperate to leave, have been ‘heartbreaking.’ 

He said the loss of state of the art Blackhawk helicopters to the Taliban were another hard choice, meant to give the Afghan forces the ability to fight. 

‘Those Blackhawks were not given to the Taliban. They were given to the Afghan national security forces to be able to defend themselves at the specific request of President [Ashraf] Ghani, who came to the Oval Office and asked for additional air capability,’ he said, referencing the former president who fled the country. 

He said Biden faced the choice of giving it to the government with the risk the Taliban might eventually get the equipment, or deprive the government of the equipment due to the risk. 

‘At some point it was time for the United States to say that the Afghan people need to stand up to themselves,’ said Sullivan. 

‘We gave 20 years of American blood, treasure, sweat and tears in Afghanistan. We gave them every capacity in terms of training and equipment to stand up and fight for themselves.’ 

With the Taliban poised to shutter schools set up with U.S. help and women and girls facing harsh reprisals and loss of freedoms, Sullivan said: ‘My heart goes out to afghan women and girls in the country today … that’s a very hard thing for any of us to face.

source: dailymail.co.uk