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This isr capability? what happened there? i had an op-ed with ambassador crocker in the new york times in may warning the administration if you re going to not leave a light footprint, if you re not going to leave a residual force, at least start evacuating citizens, the interpreters and establish this intelligence capability. they failed on all three counts. and now we re in a far more dangerous situation. maria: so, and just to be clear for our audience who may not know, isr, intelligence strategic reconnaissance, is that right, isr? and that means that we have none of it. we don t have anymore intelligence. we don t have anymore recog nance abilities given the tact we closed down bagram. as you said earlier we are dark. michael waltz, your thoughts on that, and the fact that afghanistan now has started a ....
Defensive stance. your thoughts on what was said? yeah. i m reminded of the judge who called the lawyer to the bench and said your argument is bad. it doesn t get any better by being louder. people have talked about it being firm and focused and so on. it was loud. that s all. and it was very defensive. the defensiveness of the president is obvious. look, this was a disgrace. this did not have to happen. our honor as a country was besmirched, not our soldiers but our honor as a country, a country that gives its word. just very briefly i spoke with crocker, binge west, marine colonel boots on the ground, 10 years ago, 10 years ago, bret, we had 100,000 troops in afghanistan. and the taliban controlled no provincial capitals. three weeks ago we had not 100,000 but 2500 troops in afghanistan. and the taliban controlled no ....
Republicans had to say. i think absolutely president biden bears responsibility for making this decision, but there s no question that president trump, his administration, secretary pompeo, they bear very significant responsibility for this. president biden said in july this is not going to be saigon, not like south vietnam. guess what, talk to ambassador crocker, we think it is going to be worse. reporter: behind all of this, a haunting feeling among lawmakers and aids that the united states spent trillions of dollars, lost thousands of lives trying to build what now looks like a house of cards that ultimately couldn t stand on its own. president biden made bad predictions about speed and strength of the taliban and its ability to take control of afghanistan which critics are pointing to. at the end of the day, not clear what congress will do about it, it will take a lot of support ....
There s afghanistan fatigue in the u.s. the also is absorb ised right now in this worsening health crisis with the pandemic. so the administration said, look, if we d stayed on, we would have just gotten into more ground combat with the taliban and nobody wanted that. arthel: yeah, but it s not about staying there, it s how we left. look what s happening. look what we re playing on the screen right now. let me move on though, john bussey, and i want to play more sound, this time from congressman michael mccaul on warnings about the taliban leading up to the u.s. withdrawal. let s take a listen. for months we ve been warning, ambassador crocker and i wrote an op-ed in the new york times about what we need to do now to save the intercepters, what we need to do to have disturb interpreters, what we need to do to have our isr capabilities in the region. now we are going dark? they totally blew this one with. they completely underestimated the strength of taliban, and yet ....
Essentially, pushing them to the side, delegitimizing them, which crocker believed caused a huge, kind of, body blow to support for the government among afghan-national forces. that it kind of took the wind out of their sails. i m wondering if you think there s truth in that? or because i don t understand another explanation for an army that has more weapons, has more personnel, has had 20 years of training from u.s. forces, and is not fighting. yeah. well, first off, keep in mind, afghan-special forces are extremely capable. um, and and they re really good. you re you re kind of rank and file a and a. they are obviously still struggling but they were fighting, again, with logistic support knowing you have air support. knowing you even have the communications and the intelligence to know what is attacking you. is that a taliban maybe it s another ana thing that thinks you re taliban. i mean, the ability to deconflict that is important but i think the ambassador is right. ....