Austin says “no one predicted” Afghan government “would fall in 11 days”

Defense Secretary Lloyd AustinLloyd AustinPentagon Seeks to Recruit Commercial Airlines to Help Evacuate Afghanistan US Army Finds ‘Alternative Routes’ to Kabul Airport Amid ISIS-K Threats: Reports Threats, strife and talks mark Afghan evacuation MORE said in an interview on Sunday that “no one predicted” that the Afghan government “would fall in 11 days.”

“It was very difficult to predict with precision. All of this happened in the space of about 11 days. Nobody predicted that, you know, the government would fall in 11 days, ”Austin told ABC host Martha Raddatz“ This Week ”a week after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, triggering the chaos in the region.

Austin said assessments he reviewed before the insurgent group took control estimated that it could be several months or one to two years before the fall of the Afghan government.

He told Raddatz that US officials saw Afghan military forces surrender and “sort of evaporate” as the Taliban began to gain traction.

When asked if the United States’ planning for the withdrawal was “acceptable and appropriate,” Austin replied, “I’m relying on, you know, what we were looking at and the contributions to the plan,” before criticizing. the previous administration for providing a situation where “there were no good options”.

“But I think you have to go back and look at what the administration has inherited. I mean we got in, we were facing a May 1 deadline to get all the forces out of the country. This agreement was made with the Taliban. And so he had to go through a detailed assessment very quickly, and look at all the options in terms of what he could do, you know. And none of those options were good options, ”Austin said.

“He went through a very rigorous process, a very detailed process. He listened to comments from all stakeholders in the inter-agency process. And so, at the end of the day, the president made his decision. But again he was faced with a situation where there were no good options, all of them were very difficult, ”he added.

Austin’s remarks come after a week of unrest in Afghanistan, as the US military struggled to evacuate US citizens and Afghan allies from the region amid the increased Taliban offensive.

The Pentagon announced on Saturday that about 17,000 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan last week and that about 22,000 had been withdrawn from the region since the end of July. About 2,500 Americans were evacuated from the country.

Reports, however, now indicate that American and Afghan citizens face cases of violence and harassment as they make their way to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

For this reason, the United States Embassy in the capital sent a security alert on Saturday telling Americans not to go to the airport or approach the airport gates “unless you would only receive individual instructions from a US government official to do so, “citing” potential security threats “outside the airport.

The Biden administration has been criticized for its handling of the situation in Afghanistan, with many questioning whether the president should have acted on his decision to withdraw US troops from the region, before the Taliban offensive intensified. .

Several officials are now calling on the administration to do more to withdraw the Americans and Afghan allies from the region.