Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration was reportedly warned weeks ago by U.S. officials in Afghanistan that the nation was at risk of collapsing as the Taliban made rapid territorial gains.
“The cable, sent via the State Department’s confidential dissent channel, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The cable, dated July 13, also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban.”
The report said that 23 U.S. Embassy staffers, all of whom are U.S. citizens, signed the cable and that there “was a rush to deliver it.” The report said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken received the cable and read it.
“The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it,” the report added. “The existence of the confidential State Department cable adds to an expanding debate involving the White House, Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services over what U.S. officials understood about assessments of Afghanistan’s stability.”
Fox News, CNN, and ABC News all later confirmed The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the cable.
The confidential cable constitutes the clearest proof the Biden administration had been warned by its officials the Afghan military may not be able to hold off Taliban takeover – casting questions on POTUS claim
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 19, 2021
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/1428485873876754440
.@ABC News confirms @vmsalama's @WSJ exclusive about the State Department dissent cable from employees of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul sent to Secretary of State Blinken in July pic.twitter.com/PHjsCI2QhU
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 19, 2021
Biden claimed during an interview that aired Wednesday morning on ABC News with George Stephanopoulos that none of his top military advisers warned him against withdrawing all troops from the nation:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But your top military advisors warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.
BIDEN: No, they didn’t. It was split. Tha– that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?
BIDEN: No. Not at — not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a timeframe all troops. They didn’t argue against that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no one told — your military advisors did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that”?
BIDEN: No. No one said that to me that I can recall.
WATCH:
https://twitter.com/NathanBrandWA/status/1428335526071910409
The Wall Street Journal reported, however, that Biden’s “top generals, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, urged Mr. Biden to keep a force of about 2,500 troops, the size he inherited, while seeking a peace agreement between warring Afghan factions, to help maintain stability.”
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, claimed this week that “there was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”
This is a breaking news story; refresh the page for updates.
