‘I Cannot Call Evacuation a Success’: New Details of Afghanistan Chaos

 "Let me be clear," he told lawmakers behind closed doors, "I cannot call this evacuation a success." The questions and answers from Aronson, who received a State Department commendation for his heroism during the evacuation, as well as Ambassador Ross Wilson, the last U.S. diplomat to leave Afghanistan, were obtained by RealClearPolitics and have not been published previously.

"Get on the airplane and never see your husband again or exit the airport and lose your only chance at freedom," Aronson told her, recalling for lawmakers the bleak exchange that summarized the mismanagement, and at times bureaucratic incompetence, of an evacuation that Biden himself had vowed would not be "At all comparable" to how the U.S. left Vietnam.

Kirby served as Pentagon spokesman during the withdrawal and noted that flights left the airport "Every 48 minutes" during the evacuation.

After the last U.S. flight left Kabul, Biden defiantly rejected any suggestion that an earlier evacuation order could have prevented more loss of life or allowed for "a more orderly" departure.

"The bottom line," he insisted, "Is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges and threats we faced. None." From what he saw sorting through a sea of humanity at the airport gates, Aronson testified that "It is clear to me that we should've started this evacuation and withdrawal sooner." Because of the delay, he told lawmakers, those on the ground "Had to really put our lives and our careers on the line, which we did." Extending the timeline, a delay that almost certainly would have invited Taliban reprisals, would have allowed for more Afghans to escape, he added.

While Wilson remained chief of mission, it was John Bass, who had served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, who assumed responsibility for the work of day-to-day evacuations.

The ambassador testified that, while there was no resistance within State to preparing for an evacuation in the spring and early summer, he wanted those preparations to remain classified to avoid the perception that the U.S. was "Rushing for the exits." A leak that the U.S. was planning an evacuation, he feared, could harm Afghan morale and possibly incite terror attacks amidst an ongoing civil war. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/04/01/i_cannot_call_evacuation_a_success_new_details_of_afghanistan_chaos_150729.html