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This is CBS Eye on the World. I'm John Batchelor.
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It is January 2019. Zalmay Khalilzad, representing the Trump administration,
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is telling friends that he has a peace deal with
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the Taliban. This note is a way to begin the
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conversation with two authors, Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan, of
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a new book, Kabul, the untold story of Biden's fiasco
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and the American warriors who fought to the end. Jerry Dunleavy.
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is helping the investigation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee
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into the withdrawal from Afghanistan. James Hassan, former Army captain,
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graduate of U.S. Army Ranger School, received the Bronze Star
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for his combat, for his conduct in Afghanistan and afterwards. Gentlemen,
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I begin with Samuel Khalilzad because though he has served
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several administrations right now, he's no longer prominent in the
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conversation about Afghanistan. Jerry, What do we need to know
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about him and why he was tasked by several presidents
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to represent the United States in that part of the world?
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Good evening to you, Jerry.
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Good evening. So Zalmay Khalilzad, known colloquially just as Zal
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by the people close to him, is a key figure
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in why things went so wrong in the final years
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in Afghanistan. He had spent many, many, many years as
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a diplomat on behalf of the United States, not just
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in Afghanistan, but in Iraq as well. But he was
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picked by the Trump administration to help lead peace talks
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with the Taliban. And Zal very notably, largely cut the
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Afghan Republic and the Afghan government out of those discussions
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with the Taliban. And so in our book, Kabul, we
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lay out that he ultimately played a very negative and,
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according to the people that had to work with him
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back both in the U.S. government and in the Afghan government,
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played a pretty pernicious role in the way that things
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went down. And we make no sort of bones about
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it in our book that the Doha agreement that he
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ended up striking in early 2020 was a pretty bad deal.
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And the Biden administration, when they came into power in
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January of 2021, they decided to keep Sal on. And
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various people in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State
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Antony Blinken, praised the vital work that he had been
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doing Part of why Zah was so problematic was the
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Afghan government didn't trust him. A lot of people in
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the U.S. government didn't particularly trust him. And he seemed
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to misunderstand, I think, at the very least, the intentions
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of the Taliban, downplaying what the Taliban wanted. claiming that
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the Taliban wasn't interested in a military victory, telling his
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Afghan government's counterparts that he had cornered the Taliban. And obviously,
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we saw that all came falling down in 2021. And ultimately,
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the debacle that we saw in August 2021 with Americans
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left behind, Afghans left behind, the Taliban back in power, Ultimately,
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that leads to the defeat of President Biden and his
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decision to withdraw without coming up with a plan for
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how to stop all of the negative repercussions. But Zell
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played a big role in that. And, you know, the
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Biden administration ultimately owns that because they decided to keep
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Zell on and continue to trust Zell in that role.
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James, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley,
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comes into office about this time, 2019. And it was
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the opinion of the DOD, according to their reports, that
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it might be possible to maintain order by keeping 2,500
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to 3,500 troops. I believe Mr. Trump even talked about it.
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Is that a realistic number that could have maintained order,
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at least in Kabul, for the indefinite future, James?
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Yeah, I believe it was. And, um, one thing that's,
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that's important to note, um, is that the, um, the,
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the military leadership from, um, you know, from, from the
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people in the Pentagon at the top brass all the
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way down to, um, the guys, you know, in Afghanistan
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at the time, um, senior non-commissioned officers and, um, and
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senior leaders all wanted to keep Bagram Air Base. They
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wanted to keep Bagram as the central hub of the evacuation. Um, And, but, but,
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but to, you know, circle, like to rewind a little bit, um, if,
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if we had kept forces in the country, uh, the,
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the military wanted ideally 3,500, but they said that they
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could get it done with 2,200. And what that would
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entail is keeping our, our embassy open in Kabul and, um,
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and keeping Hamid Karzai International Airport, HKIA, open, and then
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running almost all of our operations out of Bagram. And
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the reason why Bagram is so important, and we'll get
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to that when we talk about the, well, President Biden, literally,
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President Biden's decision to abandon Bagram. But the reason why
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Bagram is so crucial is because it's eminently defensible. It
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was built by the Soviets when they were in Afghanistan.
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It has all kinds of standoff distance in terms of
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open terrain surrounding it, which makes it very difficult to attack.
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And it has just a plethora of runways where you
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can operate on manned assets. You can operate on flights
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in and out of the country and really kind of
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at the very least hold a protective radius around, um,
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around Kabul and around, you know, Bagram itself, because they're
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not geographically that far away. Um, so, so it was,
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it was absolutely a, um, a realistic estimate. And when
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president Biden decided to withdraw the military, uh, you know,
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I think pleaded is the right word, to have the
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evacuation conducted out of Bagram. And President Biden decided that
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that wasn't going to happen because he wanted a maximum
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of 600 U.S. troops in the country, beginning with kind
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of the summer of 2021. And you simply can't hold
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Bagram with 600 troops. And because he made a politically
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calculated decision that he only wanted 600, we had to
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give up Bagram. And I'm sure as we'll get to
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at some point, um, also abandoned the prison that was
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housing thousands of ISIS fighters, dozens of Al Qaeda terrorists, um,
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and tens of thousands of, or thousands more, I should say,
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Taliban fighters.
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Yes, there's a deal of foreshadowing in the stories we're
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telling here. Quickly, Jerry, through February and March, the president
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was consulting with such as Barack Obama, the former president
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whom he served, and Blinken was consulting with NATO, our
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allies in NATO, the UK, Australia, and others. Was there
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unanimity about this decision that we could leave Afghanistan quickly?
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We have a couple of minutes.
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No, there wasn't unanimity. You know, NATO, of course, went
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to Afghanistan to help the United States after 9-11. And
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NATO very much did not want to do a rapid
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withdrawal from Afghanistan. At the time, NATO forces actually largely
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outnumbered U.S. forces in the country. And they told Antony
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Blinken in no uncertain terms in the, uh, late winter,
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early spring of 2021, that to do this would be
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a disaster. And, uh, Blinken actually commented that he was
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hit with quadraphonic sound, which is sort of from all
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four corners, um, from NATO telling them that this would
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be a disaster. But, uh, You know, President Biden was
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not willing to listen to what NATO wanted to do.
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And so with the United States leaving, you know, NATO
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decided to leave as well. But it's certainly not something
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that our NATO partners thought would be a good idea.
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And you could see in August 2021 how the NATO
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alliance changed. It looked like it was in a bit
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of a shambles with the disaster that unfolded, and that
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was due to strong arming from President Biden himself.
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The book is Kabul, the untold story of Biden's fiasco
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and the American warriors who fought to the end.
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Bagram, next.
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Jerry Dunleavy, James Hassan.
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I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor with Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan, the
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author of a new book, Cabal, The Untold Story of
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Biden's Fiasco. James, I come to you because you've spoken
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of Bagram. And my understanding is that it was perfectly
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designed to do what you said, to hold the country together.
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It's either 40 kilometers or 40 miles outside of Baghdad,
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outside of Cabal, which would have been perfect for the
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operation of evacuations. It also had all of the facilities
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to hold itself with troops. And Air Base also was
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a listening post on China. It was magnificently well placed.
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All of that is true. In doubts raised about leaving
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Bagram behind, the president and his counselors, Mr. Blinken, Mr. Sullivan,
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the national security, were always mentioning 300,000 troops. You and
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Jerry make 300,000, a little song that they sing for
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several chapters. What were they talking about, Steve, James?
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Yeah, it's a great question. And I'm really glad that
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you asked it because I think this is an underrated
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aspect of the Biden administration's decision to withdraw, how they
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withdrew and also how they sold it to the American people.
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As you mentioned, they, um, Repeatedly throughout the spring of
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2021 and even throughout the summer after President Biden announced
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that we were going to withdraw all troops, they repeatedly
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claimed that the Afghan military was 300,000 strong. And President
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Biden at one point said, and I believe this was
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in his April 2021 speech announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan
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claimed that they were therefore almost as strong as, as,
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as any, you know, first world country military. And they
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use this talking point to sell the idea that they
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could leave and the Afghan military could simply, um, you know,
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carry on. And that, that 300,000 figure is just simply false.
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for several reasons. First, the number that their calculation included
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local police, border police, and all kinds of other semi-paramilitary units,
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which is absurd because if you think about it, I mean,
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we wouldn't say that the US military is 10 million
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strong because we're counting police forces in Peoria, Illinois, or
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somewhere else. It just makes no sense. So it was
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disingenuous on that level. But secondly, there was, even among
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the Afghan military roles themselves, there was a wide known
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problem of what are called ghost units. They were units
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that existed entirely on paper so that a corrupt military
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general or ministry of defense figure could collect the salaries
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for those, you know, non-existent soldiers. And this is well
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known in the Pentagon at the time. It's been documented.
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It was documented for years prior. And in Kabul, in
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our book Kabul, we bring the receipts for that. The
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the number was inflated even as the Afghan military. But
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when you get to the summer of 2021, I believe
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even as late as June, General Milley was still hyping
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this 300,000 figure. In fact, he inflated it at that
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point to 325,000. Not only was it inaccurate for the
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first two reasons I described, but By that time, the
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Afghan military had been taking significant casualties, a lot of desertions.
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So even their actual ranks were already depleted. And so
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I think this is pernicious for two reasons. First, it
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sold this to the American people as something other than
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what it was. Because if the administration simply said, hey,
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we're going to withdraw and the Afghan military is probably
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going to fall apart sooner rather than later. then, well,
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at least there's a public debate about that. Um, and
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make no mistake, there was, you know, there was very
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little doubt that the Afghan military would collapse. We spoke with, um,
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senior members of, uh, you know, CIA who said that the,
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the agency's internal assessment was that, uh, The Afghan military
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would collapse in as little as 30 days without U.S.
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contractor and military support. And the outlying figure, the greatest number,
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was 90 days. So they knew that. But I think
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one of the other reasons why this was so damaging
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was it gave a lot of American citizens who were
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in the country working as aid workers or for the
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World Bank or for almost anything else, a false sense
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of security because we told them, hey, you don't need
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to get out now. Things aren't going to collapse. You're fine.
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And then in a matter of weeks, the Taliban overran
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the entire country and were outside the gates of Kabul.
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And American citizens and our Afghan allies were stuck behind
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Taliban lines with very little way to get to safety
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without endangering their own lives.
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And John, all that I would add to that is
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on top of the Biden administration pushing this obviously fictional 300,000
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strong Afghan military figure, at the same time, as we
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were pulling all of our troops out in rapid fashion,
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that also meant pulling our contractors, our logistics, our ISR,
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our advisors, all of the things that we had built
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the Afghan military around. And so, and at the same time,
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even into.
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June, July, and August, the US military still hadn't come
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up with a plan about how to continue to keep
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the Afghan military fighting and functioning.
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So it obviously ended in disaster. And you can see
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that play out. But the rhetoric that we were using
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was very misleading. And as we were setting up the
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Afghan military for failure, we were misleading about its size
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and its strength.
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Jared Dunleavy, James Hassan, Cabell, I'm John Batchelor. This is
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CBS Eye on the World. I'm John Batchelor with Jared
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Dunleavy and James Hassan, the authors of the new book,
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The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American Warriors
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Who Fought to the End. Jerry, I come to you
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because You're going to help me solve the State Department.
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They have acronyms. They're a challenge. The first is SIV.
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The second is NEO. I loved it when somebody kept saying,
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don't say NEO. Don't say NEO. I think that might
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have been the Secretary of State. What is a NEO?
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Why were they so frightened about it? What does it mean?
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This is not Saigon. We do have people who were
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not here then, Jerry. We've got to be careful. Yeah.
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and what is an SIV and why didn't they know
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how many SIVs they had?
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Yeah. Well, let's, let's start with the SIV problem. So
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SIV is a special immigrant visa. And so these are the, the,
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this is the visa program that was set up for, um,
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our Afghan allies. So our interpreters, uh, Afghan interpreters who
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helped the U S military and, and other folks like that. And, uh,
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The SIV program, which was plagued by problems for many, many,
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many years, those problems had not been solved by the
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time that President Biden decided to leave Afghanistan. And so
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as the U.S. was pulling all of our troops out
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and the Taliban is rapidly advancing, we have tens of
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thousands of Afghan allies in the country that we had
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not come up with a plan about how to get out.
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And that problem was never fixed and never solved by
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the time that August 2021 rolled around. And so those
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tens of thousands of Afghan allies who we had made
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promises to because of their years or sometimes their decades
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of help to the US military and the US NATO
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mission in Afghanistan, all of those people were stuck behind
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Taliban lines. And while thanks to the incredible efforts of
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the U.S. Marines and other service members at Kabul Airport
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during those two weeks in mid to late August 2021.
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Thanks to their efforts, we were able to get, you know,
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a few ten thousands of those Afghan allies out. Many more,
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tens of thousands more were left behind. And the Biden
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administration just never put together a plan about what to
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do for them. In terms of ANEO, ANEO is a
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non-combatant evacuation operation. That is what the State Department has
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to request from the military to conduct an evacuation out
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of a country like Afghanistan. And the State Department and
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the U.S. Embassy in Kabul should have known that ANEO
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would be necessary very early in 2021, but they were
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in a state of denial. the Biden administration should have
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known that if they were going to do a NEO,
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Bagram would be a much safer, much more orderly place
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to do it from. But the Biden administration and President Biden,
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because of the troop cap that he put in the country,
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shuttered Bagram and meant that we couldn't do a NEO there,
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meant that we were stuck doing a NEO out of
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a small airport in the middle of Kabul, the capital,
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and that we were stuck doing that NEO in the
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middle of Kabul while the Taliban were in charge, which
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meant that we were stuck doing our NEO while we
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had to rely on the Taliban to provide security outside
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the airport. These were choices that President Biden made, choices
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that he made to not fix the SIV problem before
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the withdrawal. And these were choices that the State Department
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made not to declare a NEO until the Taliban had
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taken over Kabul. And obviously, this put U.S. service members
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in grave danger. And we saw the great loss of life.
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Thirteen U.S. service members killed on August 26th. Dozens of
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service members wounded, some of them grievously, some of them
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with life-altering and permanent injuries. And close to 200 Afghans
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killed as well. So the SIV problem and the question
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of when to do NEO– The Biden administration just did
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not put in the thought and planning that it needed to.
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And we all saw that end in disaster in August 2021.
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What did Saigon mean to them? Why did they keep
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saying this isn't Saigon? What were they trying to convey? Yeah.
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So in Saigon in 1975, that is the capital of
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South Vietnam. And the North Vietnamese swept south towards the
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South Vietnamese capital. And the US had to do a
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very rushed withdrawal from that country as well. And as
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one quick aside and sort of the connection here for
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how President Biden thinks about these things, he joined the
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Senate a little bit too late to be a major
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player in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War. So
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how he tried to make his mark in 1975 was
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he was the most vociferous person in the US government
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opposing efforts to save South Vietnamese allies, people that had
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fought alongside us during the Vietnam War. He even had
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a quote, and this is very close to being his
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exact quote, where he said that we don't have a
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moral obligation to save one or 100,000 South Vietnamese. And
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part of our book is that we think that President
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Biden sort of took that same mentality towards our Afghan allies.
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decades later, because you could see that same sort of
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callousness play out. And while the Biden administration was claiming
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that this was not going to be like Saigon, Biden
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said you won't see helicopters flying off the U.S. embassy
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this time around. I think that what happened in Kabul
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in 2021 was probably worse than what happened in Saigon
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in 1975. James, I come to you.
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The military can see what's going on. They don't have
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the State Department need for acronyms. The Secretary of Defense,
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General Lawson, is former CENTCOM. General McKenzie is CENTCOM. General
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Miller's on the scene. They know that Kunduz falls August 5th.
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At that point, are they telling State? Are they telling
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the White House this is going to all go over
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the cliff? Are they saying that out loud, James?
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They're not saying it to the public, and that's for certain.
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They were at that point warning the Biden administration and
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the State Department in particular, because the State Department is
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the agency in charge of announcing a NEO, a noncombatant evacuation,
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basically an evacuation of American citizens. That's the State Department's responsibility.
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The military cannot announce it on its own. It cannot
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declare one. But so they were definitely telling the, the,
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the administration that, that things were, were falling quickly. You know,
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in fact, General Vasily, who was the commander of, or
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excuse me, Admiral Vasily, who was the, um, commander of
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U S forces, Afghanistan at the time, um, had said even, uh,
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a few months back, uh, you know, before, um, before August.
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So we're talking, you know, June that the trajectory of Afghanistan,
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this direct quote, quote, the trajectory of Afghanistan is in
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a downward spiral and likely not recoverable. Um, and to
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that end, um, you know, the, uh, the military was
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trying desperately to get the administration to, you know, pull
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its head out of the sand or to stop just
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wish casting and kind of engaging in this magical thinking
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that everything is going to be okay. But that wasn't,
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obviously it was not the case. But to give you
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just a side-by-side of what the military was seeing, and
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what the administration, and in particular the State Department, was
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doing at the time. When Admiral Vasily made that assessment
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in June of 2021, that the Afghan government was basically
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in a death spiral, the State Department locked down the Afghan,
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the U.S. Embassy in Kabul because of COVID for several weeks,
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canceled all, you know, meetings with like interviews, exit interviews
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with Afghan interpreters who were scheduled to leave the country,
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stopped providing almost any, any services at all. And in fact,
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confined most of the staff to their rooms other than
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outdoor isolated exercise. And so just the seriousness and the
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gravity of the situation was completely lost on the administration,
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or at the very least, perhaps that they didn't, you know,
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perhaps that they didn't prioritize what was happening to those SIVs,
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but they were warned and they were warned repeatedly.
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The book is Cabell, The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco
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and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End. I'm
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John Batchelor. I'm John Batchelor with Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan,
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whose new book I highly recommend. It's a tough read, however,
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when you see what could have been done. The Untold
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Story of Biden's Fiasco. It's August 15, 2021. Ghani, the
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president of the country, a man who has been kept
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in power by the U.S. and NATO for some time
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with full understanding of his responsibilities, flees the country in
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a helicopter, and he now is in the Middle East,
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to my understanding, and living out his life explaining himself.
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That event, however, means that there is no leadership in Kabul.
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The police chief, the generals, they all flee, grabbing helicopters
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from Hakiya, the airport at the center of the city,
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and fleeing. So, Jerry, I come to you at this point.
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We begin a crisis at Hakia. We need to describe
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that airfield. Where was it and why was it a
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catastrophe to choose Hakia for an evacuation, Jerry?
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Yeah. So the acronym HKIA, Hamid Karzai International Airporter, often
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called HKIA. This is an airport in in the middle
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of Kabul. And this is the place that the Biden
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administration had chosen to do its evacuation from. So we
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should have chosen Bagram. And the State Department, in fact,
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was warned even by the command sergeant major at Bagram
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that to do a neo, an evacuation through Kabul airport
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would be a disaster, that it should be done through Bagram.
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But because of President Biden's decisions, we shutter Bagram, we
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have to do the evacuation through Kabul airport. Well, now,
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When Ghani flees, the Afghan government collapses and the Taliban
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walks into Kabul. Now we have to do an evacuation
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through Kabul airport, but we have to do it with
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the Taliban in charge and with reliance on the Taliban
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right outside the gates of HKIA. And keep in mind,
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President Biden, in his mind, he tried to reduce our
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US military footprint to something like 600 troops. that was
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not nearly enough to maintain order. And you see that
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in those dramatic scenes when the airport was overrun in
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those early days of mid-August 2021. Tens of thousands of
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Afghans trying to flee the country, the scenes of Afghans
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clinging to planes, and even as planes take off, Afghans
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falling to their deaths. We call that, it's called the
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Night of the Zombies in our book. And It was
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a terrible, terrible situation. Because of Biden's decision to reduce U.S.
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troops to that level, the Taliban is able to walk
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into Kabul. All that we have is the airport, and
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we have to flow now 5,000 to 6,000 troops back in.
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And now these U.S. service members are tasked with getting
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out thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Afghan allies
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and others, all while the Taliban is right outside the gates.
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And the Taliban is sometimes turning Americans away from the gates,
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sometimes beating Americans, turning our Afghan allies away, beating our
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Afghan allies, sometimes killing Afghans within full view of some
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of the Marines in the sniper towers. And at the
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same time, we have a massive ISIS-K threat as well,
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because the first thing that the Taliban did when they
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took over Bagram on August 15th is they opened the
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doors to the prisons at Bagram. And those prisons held
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something like 2,000 ISIS-K terrorists, dozens of Al-Qaeda terrorists, and
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thousands of Taliban fighters. And they opened those doors. And
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among those ISIS-K prisoners who were freed was a man
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named Abdul Rahman al-Laghari, who would go on to carry
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out that terrorist attack at Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport
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on August 26th. And so The simple matter is that
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keeping Bagram was smart for about 10,000 different reasons. But
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one simple fact is that if we had just held
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on to Bagram, the suicide bomber who killed those Americans
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and killed those Afghan civilians, he would have been sitting
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behind bars rather than being able to carry out a
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terrorist attack.
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John, if I may, I'd like to just jump in
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and add kind of some color about what what transpired
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on the night of the 15th, because, as Jerry mentioned,
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or on the 15th and kind of bleeding into the
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morning of August 16th. As Jerry mentioned, you know, Americans
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saw the images of Afghans falling from departing U.S. Air
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Force planes. And we kind of discuss who those Afghans
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were in detail in our book in Kabul and also
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kind of what led up to it. But just to
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paint the scene, because we only had 600 troops in
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the country, which is about commensurate pound for pound with
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what you would have guarding an embassy in almost any
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other Middle Eastern nation, the military had to rely on
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the Afghan military to help defend the perimeters of HKIA,
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of the Kabul airfield. And when the Afghan military fled,
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half of the perimeter was completely exposed. And the military
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did not have the manpower to defend that entire area.
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And on top of that, several units were flying back
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and forth to the embassy to evacuate all of the
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State Department staffers who were still there because the State
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Department had not issued, had not evacuated them beforehand. So
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you had several hundred troops at the most trying to
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basically guard the most critical infrastructure on the airfield. And
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the gates were opened and tens of thousands of Afghans
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swarmed the airfield and the, the troops on the ground
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had to form basically a protective perimeter standing shoulder to
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shoulder surrounding the command center at Hamid Qazi international airport. Because, um, if,
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if the command center was overrun, then there would be
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no evacuation at all. Um, everything would be lost. And
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in fact, during that time, um, several of the control
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towers at the airport were destroyed by the mob. And
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so the Marines and Air Force special operators had to
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conduct air traffic control for the entire evacuation, sitting underneath
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a tent using handheld radios and maps. And it's just
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an absolute feat of ingenuity that they were able to
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do it at all. But That's kind of the backstory
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behind the scenes that everyone saw when everyone was flooding
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the airfield. And to be able to clear the runways
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so that reinforcements could land, the military made a last
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second decision to put two Apache attack helicopters in the
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air and have them fly just a few dozen feet
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above the runway and use the force of the propellers
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to clear the crowd. Things were that dire.
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Yes, I understand. We're talking about the Marine Corps and
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the U.S. Army, the 82nd Airborne Elements of and the Marines,
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first Marine Division Elements of coming in very quickly to
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conduct the NEO mission. James, I got the sense that
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they'd been on other missions and were given the hurry
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up to gather themselves together and get into Kabul. Is
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that correct? They were not waiting on the tarmac for
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this catastrophe.
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That's generally correct. The Marines from 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines
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were in Jordan and other places. Part of their mission
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was to be on standby to some degree. The 82nd
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Airborne troops were in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But they
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both got spun up at the last second. They had
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absolutely no idea what they were facing, and they had
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to do their best.
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The book is Cabell, James, Hassan, and Jerry Dunleavy. When
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we come back, it gets worse. This is CBS Eye
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on the World. I'm John Batchelor.
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This is CBS Eye on the World. I'm John Batchelor.
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It is January 2019. Zalmay Khalilzad, representing the Trump administration,
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is telling friends that he has a peace deal with
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the Taliban. This note is a way to begin the
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conversation with two authors, Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan, of
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a new book, Kabul, the untold story of Biden's fiasco
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and the American warriors who fought to the end. Jerry Dunleavy.
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is helping the investigation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee
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into the withdrawal from Afghanistan. James Hassan, former Army captain,
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graduate of U.S. Army Ranger School, received the Bronze Star
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for his combat, for his conduct in Afghanistan and afterwards. Gentlemen,
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I begin with Samuel Khalilzad because though he has served
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several administrations right now, he's no longer prominent in the
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conversation about Afghanistan. Jerry, What do we need to know
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about him and why he was tasked by several presidents
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to represent the United States in that part of the world?
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Good evening to you, Jerry.
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Good evening. So Zalmay Khalilzad, known colloquially just as Zal
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by the people close to him, is a key figure
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in why things went so wrong in the final years
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in Afghanistan. He had spent many, many, many years as
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a diplomat on behalf of the United States, not just
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in Afghanistan, but in Iraq as well. But he was
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picked by the Trump administration to help lead peace talks
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with the Taliban. And Zal very notably, largely cut the
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Afghan Republic and the Afghan government out of those discussions
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with the Taliban. And so in our book, Kabul, we
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lay out that he ultimately played a very negative and,
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according to the people that had to work with him
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back both in the U.S. government and in the Afghan government,
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played a pretty pernicious role in the way that things
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went down. And we make no sort of bones about
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it in our book that the Doha agreement that he
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ended up striking in early 2020 was a pretty bad deal.
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And the Biden administration, when they came into power in
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January of 2021, they decided to keep Sal on. And
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various people in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State
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Antony Blinken, praised the vital work that he had been
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doing Part of why Zah was so problematic was the
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Afghan government didn't trust him. A lot of people in
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the U.S. government didn't particularly trust him. And he seemed
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to misunderstand, I think, at the very least, the intentions
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of the Taliban, downplaying what the Taliban wanted. claiming that
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the Taliban wasn't interested in a military victory, telling his
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Afghan government's counterparts that he had cornered the Taliban. And obviously,
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we saw that all came falling down in 2021. And ultimately,
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the debacle that we saw in August 2021 with Americans
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left behind, Afghans left behind, the Taliban back in power, Ultimately,
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that leads to the defeat of President Biden and his
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decision to withdraw without coming up with a plan for
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how to stop all of the negative repercussions. But Zell
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played a big role in that. And, you know, the
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Biden administration ultimately owns that because they decided to keep
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Zell on and continue to trust Zell in that role.
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James, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley,
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comes into office about this time, 2019. And it was
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the opinion of the DOD, according to their reports, that
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it might be possible to maintain order by keeping 2,500
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to 3,500 troops. I believe Mr. Trump even talked about it.
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Is that a realistic number that could have maintained order,
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at least in Kabul, for the indefinite future, James?
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Yeah, I believe it was. And, um, one thing that's,
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that's important to note, um, is that the, um, the,
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the military leadership from, um, you know, from, from the
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people in the Pentagon at the top brass all the
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way down to, um, the guys, you know, in Afghanistan
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at the time, um, senior non-commissioned officers and, um, and
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senior leaders all wanted to keep Bagram Air Base. They
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wanted to keep Bagram as the central hub of the evacuation. Um, And, but, but,
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but to, you know, circle, like to rewind a little bit, um, if,
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if we had kept forces in the country, uh, the,
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the military wanted ideally 3,500, but they said that they
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could get it done with 2,200. And what that would
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entail is keeping our, our embassy open in Kabul and, um,
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and keeping Hamid Karzai International Airport, HKIA, open, and then
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running almost all of our operations out of Bagram. And
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the reason why Bagram is so important, and we'll get
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to that when we talk about the, well, President Biden, literally,
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President Biden's decision to abandon Bagram. But the reason why
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Bagram is so crucial is because it's eminently defensible. It
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was built by the Soviets when they were in Afghanistan.
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It has all kinds of standoff distance in terms of
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open terrain surrounding it, which makes it very difficult to attack.
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And it has just a plethora of runways where you
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can operate on manned assets. You can operate on flights
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in and out of the country and really kind of
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at the very least hold a protective radius around, um,
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around Kabul and around, you know, Bagram itself, because they're
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not geographically that far away. Um, so, so it was,
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it was absolutely a, um, a realistic estimate. And when
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president Biden decided to withdraw the military, uh, you know,
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I think pleaded is the right word, to have the
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evacuation conducted out of Bagram. And President Biden decided that
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that wasn't going to happen because he wanted a maximum
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of 600 U.S. troops in the country, beginning with kind
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of the summer of 2021. And you simply can't hold
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Bagram with 600 troops. And because he made a politically
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calculated decision that he only wanted 600, we had to
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give up Bagram. And I'm sure as we'll get to
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at some point, um, also abandoned the prison that was
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housing thousands of ISIS fighters, dozens of Al Qaeda terrorists, um,
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and tens of thousands of, or thousands more, I should say,
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Taliban fighters.
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Yes, there's a deal of foreshadowing in the stories we're
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telling here. Quickly, Jerry, through February and March, the president
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was consulting with such as Barack Obama, the former president
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whom he served, and Blinken was consulting with NATO, our
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allies in NATO, the UK, Australia, and others. Was there
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unanimity about this decision that we could leave Afghanistan quickly?
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We have a couple of minutes.
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No, there wasn't unanimity. You know, NATO, of course, went
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to Afghanistan to help the United States after 9-11. And
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NATO very much did not want to do a rapid
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withdrawal from Afghanistan. At the time, NATO forces actually largely
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outnumbered U.S. forces in the country. And they told Antony
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Blinken in no uncertain terms in the, uh, late winter,
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early spring of 2021, that to do this would be
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a disaster. And, uh, Blinken actually commented that he was
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hit with quadraphonic sound, which is sort of from all
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four corners, um, from NATO telling them that this would
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be a disaster. But, uh, You know, President Biden was
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not willing to listen to what NATO wanted to do.
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And so with the United States leaving, you know, NATO
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decided to leave as well. But it's certainly not something
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that our NATO partners thought would be a good idea.
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And you could see in August 2021 how the NATO
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alliance changed. It looked like it was in a bit
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of a shambles with the disaster that unfolded, and that
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was due to strong arming from President Biden himself.
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The book is Kabul, the untold story of Biden's fiasco
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and the American warriors who fought to the end.
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Bagram, next.
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Jerry Dunleavy, James Hassan.
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I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor with Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan, the
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author of a new book, Cabal, The Untold Story of
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Biden's Fiasco. James, I come to you because you've spoken
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of Bagram. And my understanding is that it was perfectly
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designed to do what you said, to hold the country together.
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It's either 40 kilometers or 40 miles outside of Baghdad,
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outside of Cabal, which would have been perfect for the
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operation of evacuations. It also had all of the facilities
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to hold itself with troops. And Air Base also was
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a listening post on China. It was magnificently well placed.
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All of that is true. In doubts raised about leaving
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Bagram behind, the president and his counselors, Mr. Blinken, Mr. Sullivan,
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the national security, were always mentioning 300,000 troops. You and
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Jerry make 300,000, a little song that they sing for
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several chapters. What were they talking about, Steve, James?
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Yeah, it's a great question. And I'm really glad that
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you asked it because I think this is an underrated
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aspect of the Biden administration's decision to withdraw, how they
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withdrew and also how they sold it to the American people.
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As you mentioned, they, um, Repeatedly throughout the spring of
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2021 and even throughout the summer after President Biden announced
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that we were going to withdraw all troops, they repeatedly
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claimed that the Afghan military was 300,000 strong. And President
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Biden at one point said, and I believe this was
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in his April 2021 speech announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan
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claimed that they were therefore almost as strong as, as,
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as any, you know, first world country military. And they
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use this talking point to sell the idea that they
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could leave and the Afghan military could simply, um, you know,
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carry on. And that, that 300,000 figure is just simply false.
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for several reasons. First, the number that their calculation included
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local police, border police, and all kinds of other semi-paramilitary units,
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which is absurd because if you think about it, I mean,
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we wouldn't say that the US military is 10 million
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strong because we're counting police forces in Peoria, Illinois, or
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somewhere else. It just makes no sense. So it was
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disingenuous on that level. But secondly, there was, even among
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the Afghan military roles themselves, there was a wide known
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problem of what are called ghost units. They were units
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that existed entirely on paper so that a corrupt military
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general or ministry of defense figure could collect the salaries
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for those, you know, non-existent soldiers. And this is well
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known in the Pentagon at the time. It's been documented.
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It was documented for years prior. And in Kabul, in
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our book Kabul, we bring the receipts for that. The
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the number was inflated even as the Afghan military. But
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when you get to the summer of 2021, I believe
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even as late as June, General Milley was still hyping
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this 300,000 figure. In fact, he inflated it at that
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point to 325,000. Not only was it inaccurate for the
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first two reasons I described, but By that time, the
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Afghan military had been taking significant casualties, a lot of desertions.
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So even their actual ranks were already depleted. And so
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I think this is pernicious for two reasons. First, it
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sold this to the American people as something other than
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what it was. Because if the administration simply said, hey,
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we're going to withdraw and the Afghan military is probably
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going to fall apart sooner rather than later. then, well,
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at least there's a public debate about that. Um, and
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make no mistake, there was, you know, there was very
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little doubt that the Afghan military would collapse. We spoke with, um,
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senior members of, uh, you know, CIA who said that the,
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the agency's internal assessment was that, uh, The Afghan military
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would collapse in as little as 30 days without U.S.
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contractor and military support. And the outlying figure, the greatest number,
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was 90 days. So they knew that. But I think
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one of the other reasons why this was so damaging
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was it gave a lot of American citizens who were
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in the country working as aid workers or for the
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World Bank or for almost anything else, a false sense
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of security because we told them, hey, you don't need
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to get out now. Things aren't going to collapse. You're fine.
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And then in a matter of weeks, the Taliban overran
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the entire country and were outside the gates of Kabul.
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And American citizens and our Afghan allies were stuck behind
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Taliban lines with very little way to get to safety
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without endangering their own lives.
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And John, all that I would add to that is
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on top of the Biden administration pushing this obviously fictional 300,000
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strong Afghan military figure, at the same time, as we
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were pulling all of our troops out in rapid fashion,
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that also meant pulling our contractors, our logistics, our ISR,
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our advisors, all of the things that we had built
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the Afghan military around. And so, and at the same time,
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even into.
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June, July, and August, the US military still hadn't come
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up with a plan about how to continue to keep
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the Afghan military fighting and functioning.
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So it obviously ended in disaster. And you can see
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that play out. But the rhetoric that we were using
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was very misleading. And as we were setting up the
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Afghan military for failure, we were misleading about its size
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and its strength.
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Jared Dunleavy, James Hassan, Cabell, I'm John Batchelor. This is
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CBS Eye on the World. I'm John Batchelor with Jared
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Dunleavy and James Hassan, the authors of the new book,
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The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American Warriors
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Who Fought to the End. Jerry, I come to you
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because You're going to help me solve the State Department.
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They have acronyms. They're a challenge. The first is SIV.
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The second is NEO. I loved it when somebody kept saying,
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don't say NEO. Don't say NEO. I think that might
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have been the Secretary of State. What is a NEO?
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Why were they so frightened about it? What does it mean?
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This is not Saigon. We do have people who were
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not here then, Jerry. We've got to be careful. Yeah.
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and what is an SIV and why didn't they know
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how many SIVs they had?
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Yeah. Well, let's, let's start with the SIV problem. So
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SIV is a special immigrant visa. And so these are the, the,
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this is the visa program that was set up for, um,
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our Afghan allies. So our interpreters, uh, Afghan interpreters who
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helped the U S military and, and other folks like that. And, uh,
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The SIV program, which was plagued by problems for many, many,
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many years, those problems had not been solved by the
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time that President Biden decided to leave Afghanistan. And so
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as the U.S. was pulling all of our troops out
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and the Taliban is rapidly advancing, we have tens of
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thousands of Afghan allies in the country that we had
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not come up with a plan about how to get out.
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And that problem was never fixed and never solved by
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the time that August 2021 rolled around. And so those
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tens of thousands of Afghan allies who we had made
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promises to because of their years or sometimes their decades
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of help to the US military and the US NATO
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mission in Afghanistan, all of those people were stuck behind
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Taliban lines. And while thanks to the incredible efforts of
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the U.S. Marines and other service members at Kabul Airport
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during those two weeks in mid to late August 2021.
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Thanks to their efforts, we were able to get, you know,
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a few ten thousands of those Afghan allies out. Many more,
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tens of thousands more were left behind. And the Biden
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administration just never put together a plan about what to
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do for them. In terms of ANEO, ANEO is a
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non-combatant evacuation operation. That is what the State Department has
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to request from the military to conduct an evacuation out
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of a country like Afghanistan. And the State Department and
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the U.S. Embassy in Kabul should have known that ANEO
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would be necessary very early in 2021, but they were
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in a state of denial. the Biden administration should have
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known that if they were going to do a NEO,
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Bagram would be a much safer, much more orderly place
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to do it from. But the Biden administration and President Biden,
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because of the troop cap that he put in the country,
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shuttered Bagram and meant that we couldn't do a NEO there,
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meant that we were stuck doing a NEO out of
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a small airport in the middle of Kabul, the capital,
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and that we were stuck doing that NEO in the
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middle of Kabul while the Taliban were in charge, which
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meant that we were stuck doing our NEO while we
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had to rely on the Taliban to provide security outside
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the airport. These were choices that President Biden made, choices
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that he made to not fix the SIV problem before
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the withdrawal. And these were choices that the State Department
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made not to declare a NEO until the Taliban had
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taken over Kabul. And obviously, this put U.S. service members
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in grave danger. And we saw the great loss of life.
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Thirteen U.S. service members killed on August 26th. Dozens of
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service members wounded, some of them grievously, some of them
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with life-altering and permanent injuries. And close to 200 Afghans
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killed as well. So the SIV problem and the question
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of when to do NEO– The Biden administration just did
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not put in the thought and planning that it needed to.
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And we all saw that end in disaster in August 2021.
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What did Saigon mean to them? Why did they keep
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saying this isn't Saigon? What were they trying to convey? Yeah.
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So in Saigon in 1975, that is the capital of
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South Vietnam. And the North Vietnamese swept south towards the
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South Vietnamese capital. And the US had to do a
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very rushed withdrawal from that country as well. And as
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one quick aside and sort of the connection here for
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how President Biden thinks about these things, he joined the
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Senate a little bit too late to be a major
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player in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War. So
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how he tried to make his mark in 1975 was
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he was the most vociferous person in the US government
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opposing efforts to save South Vietnamese allies, people that had
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fought alongside us during the Vietnam War. He even had
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a quote, and this is very close to being his
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exact quote, where he said that we don't have a
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moral obligation to save one or 100,000 South Vietnamese. And
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part of our book is that we think that President
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Biden sort of took that same mentality towards our Afghan allies.
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decades later, because you could see that same sort of
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callousness play out. And while the Biden administration was claiming
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that this was not going to be like Saigon, Biden
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said you won't see helicopters flying off the U.S. embassy
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this time around. I think that what happened in Kabul
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in 2021 was probably worse than what happened in Saigon
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in 1975. James, I come to you.
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The military can see what's going on. They don't have
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the State Department need for acronyms. The Secretary of Defense,
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General Lawson, is former CENTCOM. General McKenzie is CENTCOM. General
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Miller's on the scene. They know that Kunduz falls August 5th.
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At that point, are they telling State? Are they telling
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the White House this is going to all go over
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the cliff? Are they saying that out loud, James?
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They're not saying it to the public, and that's for certain.
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They were at that point warning the Biden administration and
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the State Department in particular, because the State Department is
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the agency in charge of announcing a NEO, a noncombatant evacuation,
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basically an evacuation of American citizens. That's the State Department's responsibility.
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The military cannot announce it on its own. It cannot
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declare one. But so they were definitely telling the, the,
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the administration that, that things were, were falling quickly. You know,
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in fact, General Vasily, who was the commander of, or
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excuse me, Admiral Vasily, who was the, um, commander of
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U S forces, Afghanistan at the time, um, had said even, uh,
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a few months back, uh, you know, before, um, before August.
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So we're talking, you know, June that the trajectory of Afghanistan,
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this direct quote, quote, the trajectory of Afghanistan is in
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a downward spiral and likely not recoverable. Um, and to
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that end, um, you know, the, uh, the military was
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trying desperately to get the administration to, you know, pull
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its head out of the sand or to stop just
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wish casting and kind of engaging in this magical thinking
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that everything is going to be okay. But that wasn't,
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obviously it was not the case. But to give you
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just a side-by-side of what the military was seeing, and
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what the administration, and in particular the State Department, was
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doing at the time. When Admiral Vasily made that assessment
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in June of 2021, that the Afghan government was basically
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in a death spiral, the State Department locked down the Afghan,
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the U.S. Embassy in Kabul because of COVID for several weeks,
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canceled all, you know, meetings with like interviews, exit interviews
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with Afghan interpreters who were scheduled to leave the country,
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stopped providing almost any, any services at all. And in fact,
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confined most of the staff to their rooms other than
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outdoor isolated exercise. And so just the seriousness and the
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gravity of the situation was completely lost on the administration,
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or at the very least, perhaps that they didn't, you know,
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perhaps that they didn't prioritize what was happening to those SIVs,
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but they were warned and they were warned repeatedly.
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The book is Cabell, The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco
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and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End. I'm
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John Batchelor. I'm John Batchelor with Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan,
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whose new book I highly recommend. It's a tough read, however,
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when you see what could have been done. The Untold
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Story of Biden's Fiasco. It's August 15, 2021. Ghani, the
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president of the country, a man who has been kept
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in power by the U.S. and NATO for some time
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with full understanding of his responsibilities, flees the country in
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a helicopter, and he now is in the Middle East,
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to my understanding, and living out his life explaining himself.
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That event, however, means that there is no leadership in Kabul.
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The police chief, the generals, they all flee, grabbing helicopters
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from Hakiya, the airport at the center of the city,
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and fleeing. So, Jerry, I come to you at this point.
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We begin a crisis at Hakia. We need to describe
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that airfield. Where was it and why was it a
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catastrophe to choose Hakia for an evacuation, Jerry?
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Yeah. So the acronym HKIA, Hamid Karzai International Airporter, often
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called HKIA. This is an airport in in the middle
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of Kabul. And this is the place that the Biden
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administration had chosen to do its evacuation from. So we
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should have chosen Bagram. And the State Department, in fact,
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was warned even by the command sergeant major at Bagram
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that to do a neo, an evacuation through Kabul airport
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would be a disaster, that it should be done through Bagram.
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But because of President Biden's decisions, we shutter Bagram, we
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have to do the evacuation through Kabul airport. Well, now,
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When Ghani flees, the Afghan government collapses and the Taliban
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walks into Kabul. Now we have to do an evacuation
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through Kabul airport, but we have to do it with
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the Taliban in charge and with reliance on the Taliban
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right outside the gates of HKIA. And keep in mind,
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President Biden, in his mind, he tried to reduce our
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US military footprint to something like 600 troops. that was
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not nearly enough to maintain order. And you see that
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in those dramatic scenes when the airport was overrun in
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those early days of mid-August 2021. Tens of thousands of
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Afghans trying to flee the country, the scenes of Afghans
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clinging to planes, and even as planes take off, Afghans
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falling to their deaths. We call that, it's called the
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Night of the Zombies in our book. And It was
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a terrible, terrible situation. Because of Biden's decision to reduce U.S.
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troops to that level, the Taliban is able to walk
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into Kabul. All that we have is the airport, and
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we have to flow now 5,000 to 6,000 troops back in.
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And now these U.S. service members are tasked with getting
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out thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Afghan allies
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and others, all while the Taliban is right outside the gates.
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And the Taliban is sometimes turning Americans away from the gates,
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sometimes beating Americans, turning our Afghan allies away, beating our
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Afghan allies, sometimes killing Afghans within full view of some
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of the Marines in the sniper towers. And at the
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same time, we have a massive ISIS-K threat as well,
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because the first thing that the Taliban did when they
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took over Bagram on August 15th is they opened the
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doors to the prisons at Bagram. And those prisons held
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something like 2,000 ISIS-K terrorists, dozens of Al-Qaeda terrorists, and
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thousands of Taliban fighters. And they opened those doors. And
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among those ISIS-K prisoners who were freed was a man
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named Abdul Rahman al-Laghari, who would go on to carry
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out that terrorist attack at Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport
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on August 26th. And so The simple matter is that
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keeping Bagram was smart for about 10,000 different reasons. But
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one simple fact is that if we had just held
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on to Bagram, the suicide bomber who killed those Americans
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and killed those Afghan civilians, he would have been sitting
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behind bars rather than being able to carry out a
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terrorist attack.
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John, if I may, I'd like to just jump in
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and add kind of some color about what what transpired
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on the night of the 15th, because, as Jerry mentioned,
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or on the 15th and kind of bleeding into the
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morning of August 16th. As Jerry mentioned, you know, Americans
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00:33:03.630 --> 00:33:10.490
saw the images of Afghans falling from departing U.S. Air
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00:33:10.529 --> 00:33:13.730
Force planes. And we kind of discuss who those Afghans
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00:33:13.789 --> 00:33:18.730
were in detail in our book in Kabul and also
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kind of what led up to it. But just to
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paint the scene, because we only had 600 troops in
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00:33:26.990 --> 00:33:30.630
the country, which is about commensurate pound for pound with
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00:33:30.690 --> 00:33:33.309
what you would have guarding an embassy in almost any
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00:33:33.369 --> 00:33:41.339
other Middle Eastern nation, the military had to rely on
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00:33:41.380 --> 00:33:49.339
the Afghan military to help defend the perimeters of HKIA,
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00:33:49.660 --> 00:33:52.640
of the Kabul airfield. And when the Afghan military fled,
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00:33:53.289 --> 00:33:57.809
half of the perimeter was completely exposed. And the military
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00:33:57.869 --> 00:34:06.900
did not have the manpower to defend that entire area.
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00:34:07.240 --> 00:34:10.929
And on top of that, several units were flying back
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00:34:10.989 --> 00:34:16.110
and forth to the embassy to evacuate all of the
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00:34:16.429 --> 00:34:19.869
State Department staffers who were still there because the State
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00:34:19.889 --> 00:34:24.130
Department had not issued, had not evacuated them beforehand. So
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00:34:24.389 --> 00:34:30.250
you had several hundred troops at the most trying to
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00:34:30.949 --> 00:34:36.949
basically guard the most critical infrastructure on the airfield. And
460
00:34:38.150 --> 00:34:43.449
the gates were opened and tens of thousands of Afghans
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00:34:43.989 --> 00:34:48.039
swarmed the airfield and the, the troops on the ground
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00:34:48.099 --> 00:34:52.679
had to form basically a protective perimeter standing shoulder to
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00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:59.789
shoulder surrounding the command center at Hamid Qazi international airport. Because, um, if,
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00:34:59.969 --> 00:35:03.070
if the command center was overrun, then there would be
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no evacuation at all. Um, everything would be lost. And
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in fact, during that time, um, several of the control
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00:35:12.920 --> 00:35:17.239
towers at the airport were destroyed by the mob. And
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00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:23.050
so the Marines and Air Force special operators had to
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00:35:24.210 --> 00:35:29.329
conduct air traffic control for the entire evacuation, sitting underneath
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00:35:29.389 --> 00:35:35.429
a tent using handheld radios and maps. And it's just
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00:35:35.690 --> 00:35:38.510
an absolute feat of ingenuity that they were able to
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00:35:38.550 --> 00:35:47.389
do it at all. But That's kind of the backstory
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00:35:47.699 --> 00:35:51.119
behind the scenes that everyone saw when everyone was flooding
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00:35:51.159 --> 00:35:57.059
the airfield. And to be able to clear the runways
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00:35:57.739 --> 00:36:04.489
so that reinforcements could land, the military made a last
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00:36:04.550 --> 00:36:08.610
second decision to put two Apache attack helicopters in the
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00:36:08.690 --> 00:36:11.690
air and have them fly just a few dozen feet
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00:36:11.929 --> 00:36:15.150
above the runway and use the force of the propellers
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00:36:15.269 --> 00:36:18.920
to clear the crowd. Things were that dire.
480
00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:23.460
Yes, I understand. We're talking about the Marine Corps and
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00:36:24.119 --> 00:36:28.119
the U.S. Army, the 82nd Airborne Elements of and the Marines,
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00:36:28.179 --> 00:36:34.130
first Marine Division Elements of coming in very quickly to
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00:36:34.170 --> 00:36:38.190
conduct the NEO mission. James, I got the sense that
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00:36:38.230 --> 00:36:41.210
they'd been on other missions and were given the hurry
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00:36:41.289 --> 00:36:45.429
up to gather themselves together and get into Kabul. Is
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00:36:45.469 --> 00:36:49.110
that correct? They were not waiting on the tarmac for
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00:36:49.170 --> 00:36:50.170
this catastrophe.
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00:36:50.769 --> 00:36:54.650
That's generally correct. The Marines from 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines
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00:36:54.750 --> 00:36:59.130
were in Jordan and other places. Part of their mission
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00:36:59.170 --> 00:37:03.300
was to be on standby to some degree. The 82nd
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00:37:03.380 --> 00:37:08.940
Airborne troops were in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But they
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00:37:08.980 --> 00:37:11.519
both got spun up at the last second. They had
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00:37:11.860 --> 00:37:14.739
absolutely no idea what they were facing, and they had
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to do their best.
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The book is Cabell, James, Hassan, and Jerry Dunleavy. When
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00:37:19.699 --> 00:37:22.559
we come back, it gets worse. This is CBS Eye
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00:37:22.579 --> 00:37:23.929
on the World. I'm John Batchelor.
