confused, that even then, yeah, our old friends in the deep state, yeah, his allies there are now being forced to face the truth and reality. listen to james clapper himself, part of the russian hoax, earlier today. take a look. speak with the intelligence community for years, led by ciae viability of the afghan government and the competence and willingness to fight of the afghan military, and certainly, this goes back to the obama administration, when president biden was aware of this, he s well aware of this. is it likely afghanistan becomes a terror haven, much like it was before the u.s. invasion, before 9/11? absolutely. i think it is a question of the time i m going to be sooner rather than later. sean: here with reaction, fox news contributor jason chaffetz come along with former cia station chief dan hoffman, also a fox news
problematic nature of a government and the military in afghanistan. so you re saying the intelligence agencies have been warning, in effect, this president and previous presidents for years about the fragility of the afghan government. do you then hold president biden responsible for in effect ignoring those warnings? well, i don t know that he ignored it. i think he is well aware of this background. i know for a fact that he was aware of it, was briefed on it consistently when he was vice president. so i don t know about ignoring it. as much as but i do think he s certainly aware of the situation. and that pertained in afghanistan. okay. let s look ahead now you say it is only a matter of time about al qaeda reconstitutes in afghanistan. is it likely that afghanistan becomes a terror haven much like it was before the u.s. invasion, before 9/11? absolutely.
is afghanistan likely in your view to become a terror haven once again as it was before 9/11? we know that al qaeda militants were fighting alongside the taliban in some of these battles around the country. is the taliban going to give al qaeda free reign to plots and plan attacks on the u.s. from inside? defense secretary austin fielded this question a couple days ago. he referred to an estimate which is true. the intelligence community projected upon the withdrawal of the united states military from afghanistan, we could see al qaeda reconstitute in one to two years and pose a homeland threat. that estimate, however, was based on the continued presence of an afghan government which would be partners on the ground and continue collecting intelligence on al qaeda. the taliban and al qaeda are integrated. those bonds are sustaining and they re deep. and the taliban is going to allow al qaeda and other groups
have demanded those types of hearings already. hopefully on the armed services we can do the same thing. i think it s clear we lad a plan to withdraw. but we have to ask, where were the other plans? where was the economic plan, the military plan, the humanitarian plan, the evacuation plan. a lot of questions need to be asked. i can t stress enough that the priority right now is getting people off the ground. ten years ago, as you know, the u.s. pulled out of iraq, had to go back in. isis rose and it took many years to respond to that militarily. there are concerns about afghanistan becoming a terror haven again. al qaeda was fighting alongside the taliban. do you believe it s possible the u.s. will have to go back to afghanistan to address that threat? look, that s the last thing we want to do, but it s the first thing to realize we may have to do if afghanistan becomes a safe haven for terrorists upon which they can launch an attack against americans and america.
q qatar, many hundreds of miles away, also from kuwait. and it s not just the migs that will be based outside the country now, no longer inside the country. it s also surveillance, right? dro drones have to fly farther. i was speaking with a member of congress who has been briefed on the intelligence there. that means less time over target. you have to fly over here, spend less time on target, to go back, to keep track of the bad guys, in effect. who is fighting alongside the taliban in recent weeks? al qaeda and isis. the question going forward is, does afghanistan become a terror haven again? this is where we were 20 years ago. it s a real question going forward. they certainly have an advantage today they didn t have because u.s. forces aren t close. the situation very much worse today than it was weeks and months ago. jim sciutto, thank you for helping us understand this. doctors talking about the danger of covid to kids just as schools reopen. plus, unvaccinated covid patien