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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The mood was grim in the halls of the Pentagon on Monday, where the U.S. military watched helplessly as chaos erupt at Kabul airport and privately criticized the Joe Biden administration’s slowness in evacuating the Afghan allies of the United States who fear retaliation from the Taliban.
Some have criticized the State Department, which alone has the authority to grant visas to former US interpreters and other military support personnel and their families, for waiting more than two months to begin the process for Afghans fearing for their life.
Videos posted on social media showed scenes of panic and fear in Kabul, including crowds running past a US military transport plane as it rolled for take-off, with some desperately trying to cling to its side .
“We warned them for months, for months” that the situation was urgent, said a military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“I’m not angry, I’m frustrated,” another officer remarked. “The process could have been handled so differently. “
Biden ruled in mid-April that all U.S. troops must leave Afghanistan by September 11, although he later postponed that date to August 21.
Taliban fighters stand guard along a road near Zanbaq Square in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a surprisingly rapid end to the 20-year war in Afghanistan, as thousands invaded the airport in the town in an attempt to flee the group’s feared Islamist regime. . (Wakil Kohsar / AFP)
The State Department waited months, however, to put in place an ad hoc structure to keep the American allies to safety.
Another Pentagon official interviewed by AFP said diplomats tried to speed up the visa process – but the process was too long and complicated under the circumstances.
The Biden administration assumed that the US embassy in Kabul would remain open and that the Afghan government would retain control of the country for months after the US withdrawal, he said.
It’s personal’
As soon as Biden announced the pullout, the Pentagon said it was preparing for a mass evacuation.
But as of mid-June, the administration still did not consider an evacuation necessary and favored granting special visas – a process that can take up to two years.
It was not until the end of June that the White House raised the possibility of evacuating the Afghan interpreters before the end of the military withdrawal, and asked for help from the Pentagon.
A crisis unit was then set up to organize the reception of Afghan refugees on American bases while awaiting the issuance of their visas.
US President Joe Biden speaks about Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House August 16, 2021 in Washington. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)
Asked during a press briefing Monday on the delay of more than two months between the announcement of the withdrawal and the creation of the crisis cell, its director Garry Reid stressed that the Pentagon could only act in “support for the state department “.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said that when the administration realized the situation “was changing rapidly” it launched Operation Allied Refuge, which he described as ” a gargantuan effort by the United States not only to process, adjudicate and grant visas to so-called special immigrants, but to bring them to the United States with a massive airlift operation. “
He said that so far 2,000 Afghans had been brought to the United States by airlift.
The action group, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, rose in July.
“But you can go back to spring and hear Secretary (of Defense Lloyd Austin) himself talk about interpreters and translators and the sacred obligation we have to them,” Pentagon spokesman John said. Kirby.
Taliban fighters stand guard outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021. (AP Photo / Rahmat Gul)
“Everything you see in the past 48 to 72 hours is personal to everyone here at the Pentagon,” Kirby added of the footage from Afghanistan.
“Many of us have spent time in Afghanistan over the years and feel a deep sense of connection with current events,” said General Hank Taylor, chief of logistics for the United States Army, at the same press conference.
But, he added, “we are focused on the safest evacuation of Americans and Afghans.”
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