vulnerable afghans as early as may but were not allowed to do so. here at nbc, as well as other news outlets new reporting that the intelligence community warned the white house of a potential collapse and that those warnings were ignored. of course, all of this is somewhat subjective. what one person thinks they brief and what another person think they heard for what it's worth. the white house will not confirm whether president biden received such a dire forecast from his national security team, but a senior intelligence official just released a statement which seems to be the first official acknowledgment from the administration that there was information and the possibility of a swift government collapse. and here's how the statement reads. we consistently identify the risk of a rapid collapse of the afghan government. we also grew more pessimistic about the government's survival as the fighting season progressed. this was less an issue of afghan military capabilities and more a reflection of afghan leadership, cohesion and willpower. that said, the afghan government unraveled even more quickly than we anticipated.