Robert Gates, the secretary of defense under former President Barack Obama, said that President Joe Biden’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan made him physically sick to watch because it did not have to be as bad as it was.
Gates warned back in 2019 that Biden was had been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Gates made his new remarks about the disaster in Afghanistan during an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” which is set to air on Sunday.
“It was really tough for a few days there, I actually wasn’t feeling very well,” Gates said. “And I realized it was because of what was happening in Kabul. And I was just so low about the way it had ended if you will, and, and I guess the other, the other feeling that I had was that it probably did not need to have turned out that way.”
When co-host Anderson Cooper brought up that Biden said any withdrawal is messy, Gates responded, “Certainly the military considers the withdraw the most dangerous part of an operation, but, but they really had a lot of time to plan, beginning with the deal that President Trump cut with the Taliban, so that was in February of 2020.”
“Once President Biden reaffirmed that there was going to be a firm deadline date,” Gates added. “That’s the point at which I think they should have begun bringing these people out.”
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TRANSCRIPT:
ROBERT GATES, FORMER OBAMA SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It was really tough for a few days there, I actually wasn’t feeling very well. And I realized it was because of what was happening in Kabul. And I was just so low about the way it had ended, if you will, and, and I guess the other, the other feeling that I had was that it probably did not need to have turned out that way.
ANDERSON COOPER, ’60 MINUTES’ CO-HOST: Well President Biden, said any withdrawal is messy.
GATES: Certainly the military considers the withdraw the most dangerous part of an operation, but, but they really had a lot of time to plan, beginning with the deal that President Trump cut with the Taliban, so that was in February of 2020.
COOPER [VOICE OVER]: Robert Gates, who oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011, told us President Trump failed to plan properly for the evacuation of Afghans who would help the U.S. fight the Taliban. And gates also believes President Biden didn’t act quickly enough after announcing in April, he was pushing back President Trump’s deadline for the U.S. withdrawal by four months.
[START VIDEO]
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT: It’s time for American troops to come home.
[END VIDEO]
GATES: Once President Biden reaffirmed that there was going to be a firm deadline date. That’s the point at which I think they should have begun bringing these people out.