General Milley is holding a press conference right now and emphatically said that he saw nothing to indicate the Afghan military would fall and the Taliban would take over in 11 days:
I can just imagine that behind the scenes Biden was telling Milley he needed to do a press conference to take some heat off of himself because his speech two days ago only made things worse.
So here’s Milley, today, claiming that one of the three scenarios that intelligence gave him was the rapid fall of the Afghan military and takeover of the country by the Taliban. But he claims those estimates of how quickly the Taliban would take over ranged from weeks to months to years. That’s when he said:
“There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army or this government in 11 days.”
Can someone tell Milley that ’11 days’ constitutes ‘weeks’. I mean it’s almost two weeks and it’s definitely more than one week.
But seriously though, what he’s really saying is that he and the people he depends on for accurate intelligence are incompetent. I don’t really believe that’s the case, though, because those who predicted that the Taliban would take over in ‘weeks’ were just about right on point. I think the one who is truly incompetent here, other than Biden, is Milley. He’s essentially admitting it. And now there’s a crisis in Afghanistan where we can’t get our people out safely.
Milley also said in the presser that the Taliban isn’t interfering with us getting Americans out of Kabul:
"There was nothing, that I or anybody else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days," Milley said at a press briefing Wednesday.
Milley was responding to reports that intelligence had warned the security situation in Afghanistan would quickly deteriorate, with some suggesting President Joe Biden may have ignored those warnings to press ahead with his planned drawdown of forces.
But the general argued that while some intelligence did predict a collapse, none indicated the pace at which the collapse would escalate.
"I have previously said from this podium and in sworn testimony before Congress, that the intelligence clearly indicated multiple scenarios were possible: one of those was an outright Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of the Afghan Security Forces and the government. Another was a civil war, and a third was a negotiated settlement," Milley said. "However, the timeframe of a rapid collapse,' that was widely estimates and ranged from weeks, months, and even years following our departure."
Milley's remarks came as he updated the press on the situation at the Kabul airport, saying that about 4,500 U.S. troops were currently on the ground securing the airport.
The general made clear that any U.S. citizen that desires to get out of Afghanistan will have an opportunity to do so, while also promising that Afghan allies that have helped with the 20-year effort would also be afforded an opportunity to escape the country.
Milley said that 5,000 people have already been evacuated, with the military currently operating 20 sorties with C-17 aircraft every 24 hours. The general said that the military will have the capability of increasing the pace of evacuations when the State Department "makes evacuees available."
Comments
Post a Comment