{"id":1984300,"date":"2023-07-27T15:54:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T19:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-ignored-warnings-about-withdrawing-troops-from-afghanistan-military-leaders-say\/"},"modified":"2023-07-27T15:57:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T19:57:43","slug":"biden-admin-ignored-warnings-about-withdrawing-troops-from-afghanistan-military-leaders-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-ignored-warnings-about-withdrawing-troops-from-afghanistan-military-leaders-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Military leaders say the Biden administration disregarded Afghanistan troop withdrawal warnings."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-admin-ignored-warnings-about-withdrawing-troops-from-afghanistan-military-leaders-say%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1984300&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<blockquote>\n<h2>&#8216;There was very little \u200bintelligence to suggest the Biden administration\u2019s plan would work&#8217;<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<p>      A\u2064 U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/poll-majority-of-voters-blame-biden-for-mismanaging-us-exit-from-afghanistan\/\" title=\"Poll: Majority Of Voters Blame Biden For \u2018Mismanaging\u2019 US Exit From Afghanistan\">military helicopter flies<\/a> above the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021 \/ \u200dGetty Images<br \/>\n  \u2062<br \/>\n    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>The Biden \u200bAdministration Ignored\u2063 Warnings<\/h3>\n<p>The \u200dBiden administration ignored intelligence\u200b community warnings that its plan to withdraw\u2062 troops\u200d from Afghanistan would prove deadly, current and \u2063former military officials told Congress Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was very little intelligence to suggest \u200cthe Biden administration\u2019s plan would work and a mountain range of evidence to suggest the plan would\u2064 fail,&#8221; retired Col. \u2064Seth Krummrich, former chief \u200bof staff for special operations at U.S. Central Command, testified \u200don Thursday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. &#8220;The president\u2019s decision\u200b to ignore the best \u200cmilitary advice and \u2062execute an immediate military withdrawal was \u200ba shock and a rude awakening for all the \u200bplanners.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Testimony from Krummrich\u2063 and other \u200bmilitary brass involved in the rushed \u2063evacuation that left \u200c13 Americans \u200ddead provides an unprecedented window into the Biden administration\u2019s rush to leave Afghanistan as the American intelligence community\u2062 warned of catastrophic failure. President Joe Biden\u2019s White \u2064House, Krummrich disclosed for the first time\u200b publicly,\u200d &#8220;controls how we withdrew\u2063 and when we withdrew, making\u200c them the majority stakeholder of many guilty parties\u2062 in \u2063the failure \u200band collapse \u200dof \u200bAfghanistan and current Taliban rule.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another senior military \u2062leader, Command Sergeant Major Jacob Smith, warned State Department officials \u200bin the\u200b months \u2064leading up to September 2021 that\u2063 Kabul International Airport\u2014the eventual site of a \u2064terror bombing that\u2064 killed 13\u2064 service \u200dmembers\u2014was not \u200dequipped\u200c to handle\u200c a mass exodus of Americans. But \u200bthe \u2063administration refused to shift the evacuation to the more\u200d secure Bagram \u200bAir Base, which had been shut down by the\u2063 time of\u200b the withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>Bagram Air Base, \u2064Smith revealed, &#8220;had a completely \u200dsecured airfield that would require a massive military\u2063 offensive to overrun or breach.&#8221; Kabul airport, on the other hand, was\u200d surrounded by a city of 4.4 million residents and not even completely controlled by U.S. forces, presenting a host of security \u200cchallenges.<\/p>\n<p>Bagram\u200c also had &#8220;the mechanical capability to destroy sensitive \u2062equipment on an \u2064industrial\u200b scale in a short\u200d time,&#8221; \u200cwhile\u200b Kabul airport \u200b&#8221;did not,&#8221; according to\u200d Smith. If the State\u200d Department had \u200bchosen\u2063 Bagram as the site of its evacuation, the military likely could have destroyed much of <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/taliban-has-7-2-billion-worth-of-u-s-military-equipment-abandoned-in-afghanistan-report-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$7.2 billion<\/a> in sensitive \u2062military\u2062 equipment that was left behind and ultimately seized by the Taliban.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I advised the embassy team against using&#8221; the\u2063 Kabul airport, Smith said, noting that the State Department initially agreed with \u2062his assessment. However, officials back \u2062in Washington, D.C., ordered the base be\u200d shut down by early July 2021. &#8220;It is my understanding\u200c that those in \u2064 [U.S.] \u2062 embassy did\u2064 not think that \u200bTaliban would advance to take\u2063 Kabul.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>By August, a \u2062month before the full-scale evacuation effort,\u200b Kabul airport was\u200d left mostly undefended.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;An area once\u200d protected by hundreds of soldiers \u200band contractors was now protected by 113 American soldiers,&#8221; Smith said, as the families\u2063 of several soldiers killed in the September terrorist bombing wept \u2064behind him. &#8220;This was the only force left in Afghanistan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Krummrich also revealed in his testimony that the \u200ctop generals advising\u200c the Biden administration, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-who-backed-nord-stream-2-sanctions-suddenly-reverse-positions\/\" title=\"Democrats Who Backed Nord Stream 2 Sanctions Suddenly Reverse Positions\">including current chairman<\/a> of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark\u200d Miley, &#8220;all recommended not withdrawing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Prudence \u200cand patience were replaced with speed of action without\u2064 the time to study the consequences\u200b and mitigate those risks,&#8221; Krummrich said.<\/p>\n<p>Rep.\u2064 Michael McCaul (R.,\u200d Texas),\u2062 the foreign affairs \u200dcommittee\u2019s \u2064chairman, said \u2062during\u200c the hearing that \u200bthe Biden administration has repeatedly failed to produce an evacuation plan for Afghanistan,\u2063 indicating\u2063 that one did not even exist.<\/p>\n<p>Retired Col. Christopher Kolenda, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-ignored-warnings-about-withdrawing-troops-from-afghanistan-military-leaders-say\/\" title=\"Military leaders say the Biden administration disregarded Afghanistan troop withdrawal warnings.\">veteran national security analyst<\/a>,\u200c said \u2063the failures in Afghanistan point to a leadership power \u2062vacuum.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s nobody in charge,&#8221; Kolenda said. &#8220;There\u2019s nobody functionally in \u200ccharge of our wars on the ground in theater.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Current and former military officials revealed that the Biden administration disregarded intelligence community warnings about the potential deadly consequences of their Afghanistan troop withdrawal plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":1984301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1984300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1984300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1984300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1984300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1984300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}