I dont think it couldve been handled in a way that were going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there is a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, i dont know how that happens. I dont know how that happened. So for you that was always priced into the decision . Yes. Always priced into the decision. Cnns Kylie Atwood is at the State Department. Were going to start with cnns chief white House Correspondent kaitlan collins. This doesnt exactly jive with what biden has been saying in recent weeks because he has acknowledged that they did not expect the afghan military to fall as quickly as they did. Yeah, jake. Im a little surprised by that last comment there saying that he did not believe there could be a drawdown that would happen without chaos ensuing. Because what we have heard from the president and his top national security advisers for the last several months and especially over the last several days is that they have been planning for every contingen
Week. Climate envoy John Kerry will help us understand the prognosis of it. But first heres my take. As we watch the tragedy that is unfolding in afghanistan, lets first dispense with the fantasy that the United States was maintaining the peace there with just a few thousand troops and that the situation couldve been managed with this small commitment. For the last couple of years, it sure looked that way to americans because washington had made a deal with the taliban, and as a result the taliban was deliberately not attacking u. S. And coalition forces. For the afghans, the war had been intensifying. In the summer of 2019 the afghan Army And Police force suffered their worst casualties in the two decades of fighting. It was also the worst spirit for afghan civilian casualties in a decade. In 2018 when the u. S. Had four times as many troops as this year, 282 civilian afghans fled their homes in the countryside. A Government Survey done that year showed that afghan support for u. S. T
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It another way. when you had the government of afghanistan, the leader of that government get into a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off, that was that s what happened. that s simply what happened. we ve all seen the pictures. we ve seen hundreds of people packed into a c-17. that was five days ago. what did you think when you first saw those pictures? what i thought is we have to gain control of this, we have to move this more quickly, we have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport, and we did. you don t think this could have been handled better in any way? no mistakes? no.
A 300,000-person army with a decent air force collapsed in a matter of days. and that type of morale breaking is an indication of a complete lack of leadership from afghan central government. well, you know that the argument from people who disagree with how this was done, not necessarily people who think that we should continue to have a presence there, is that the u.s. provided logistical support, the u.s. provided especially through contractors technical support for the air force, and then when you have trump saying the troops need to come out, biden saying troops need to come out and all that support coming out, it s not a surprise that the afghan military would crumble as it did. the fact that after 20 years and $80 billion plus, the afghan military wasn t capable of fighting for more than a week on its own two legs is really indicative of the fact that there was no political end game for the counterinsurgency.