Leaked notes from a White House Situation Room meeting the day before Kabul fell shed new light on just how unprepared the Biden administration was to evacuate Afghan nationals who’d helped the United States in its 20-year war against the Taliban, Axios reports.
Hours before the evacuation, the Biden team were still assigning roles and trying to figure out how to evacuate civilians.
Most people knew two weeks before that Taliban were speeding to Kabul to seize it.
To outsiders, the administration appeared to lack urgency and were stuck in a bureaucratic morass. The day before Taliban reached Kabul, they were struggling to finalize plans. They hadn’t even notified Afghan staff. They still didn’t know which countries would serve as transit points.
In other words, they had no plan until hours before.
The Atlantic reported this week that thousands of vulnerable Afghans remain stuck in bureaucratic hell, terrified the Taliban they fought for years will hunt them down.
Axios obtained the NSC’s “summary of conclusions” for a meeting of the so-called Deputies Small Group with the information.
The desperation meeting was chaired by National Security Council official Liz Sherwood-Randall and included senior officials across multiple agencies, including Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The administration has a lot of excuses but there can be none.
Afghanistan Memo on Scribd
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