National security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday denied the swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was a “worst-case scenario” as U.S. forces scramble to evacuate embassy personnel and others from the embattled nation.
Taliban leaders stormed the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday as the group swept through much of the country, despite assurances from President Joe Biden and others that the Afghan National Army, which was trained and equipped by U.S. military authorities, would be able to handle itself if an attempted coup took place. Chaos has since ensued at Kabul’s airport as thousands rushed to U.S. planes in desperation.
When pressed on the events, Sullivan claimed that “adding back” a number of troops to the country would be worse than what is already unfolding.
US OFFICIALS TEMPORARILY HALT EVACUATIONS AT KABUL AIRPORT AS AFGHAN CITIZENS FLOOD TARMAC
“Actually Savannah, I think the worst-case scenario for the United States would be a circumstance in which we were adding back in thousands and thousands of troops to fight and die in a civil war in Afghanistan when the Afghan army wasn’t prepared to fight in it itself,” he told NBC’s Today host Savannah Guthrie.
“That was the alternative choice Joe Biden faced, and what we’ve learned over the course of the past two weeks is that if we had stayed one more year or two more years or five more years or 10 more years, no amount of training, equipping, or money or lives lost by the United States was going to put the Afghan army in a position to be able to sustain that country on its own,” he added.
Guthrie lashed out against Sullivan after she aired a clip of Biden from July 8 in which he indicated there would be “no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.” Recently released images from the country showed those exact events playing out.
“Mr. Sullivan, friends and foes alike are calling this withdrawal a fiasco, a debacle, and it is one that apparently the administration did not fully appreciate or see coming,” she said.
“How do you explain getting this so wrong?” the host asked.
?: U.S. Chinook helicopter flies over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, as diplomatic vehicles leave the compound after the Taliban seized control of the country. https://t.co/khE4AmjWNi pic.twitter.com/YCSZRhYITQ
— ABC News (@ABC) August 16, 2021
“Savannah, to be fair, the helicopter has been the mode of transport from our embassy to the airport for the last 20 years,” Sullivan responded.
Guthrie fired back, “But you know the larger point is not the helicopter … not the mechanism. It’s the last minute scramble.”
Sullivan then admitted: “It is certainly the case that the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated, including the Afghans, including many of the analysts who looked hard at this problem.”
The national security adviser indicated that the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban was not inevitable as he railed against the Afghan army’s lack of “will” to push back against the violent group.
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“It was not inevitable,” he said. “There was the capacity to stand up and resist. The capacity didn’t happen.”
The national security adviser later told Good Morning America that Biden would be addressing the nation on the matter “soon” as criticism mounts over his public absence.
