The Afghanistan debacle was a real stain on the Biden administration. But it’s worse than you ever thought.
Because top military officials have revealed the absolutely terrifying chaos of the Biden regime.
Last-minute efforts by U.S. State Department officials to aid the Afghanistan evacuation were marked by on-the-fly adjustments as chaotic conditions rendered prior plans irrelevant, according to recent testimony disclosed on Thursday.
The military initiated planning for a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) for U.S. personnel as early as April, before the Taliban’s widespread control, but the call for the operation didn’t come until the Taliban seized Kabul on August 15, 2021. Officials dispatched in August, including John Bass, James DeHart, and Jayne Howell, found themselves grappling with escalating danger and disorder at Hamid Karzai International Airport, with evolving directives from Washington and no clear blueprint to guide their actions.
“We were already in the midst of executing an evacuation that substantially exceeded I think the scope and scale of what had been contemplated,” Bass, the lead State Department coordinator for the evacuation, remarked.
Bass, DeHart, and Howell provided testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2023 and early 2024. GOP Chairman Michael McCaul is set to release a report later in 2024 based on a dozen testimonies and the State Department’s internal review as part of an ongoing investigation into the withdrawal.
According to CNN, the State Department hastily dispatched these officials to Afghanistan in the final days of the U.S. military presence, leveraging their extensive prior experience in the country.
They testified to receiving minimal guidance from the State Department beyond facilitating the evacuation.
“Given how fluid the situation was on the ground, I’m not sure that additional preparation time would have yielded a significant benefit,” Bass stated.
Additionally, they noted the absence of written evacuation plans.
“The situation was so fluid, I cannot emphasize enough to you that minute to minute, what was happening was changing,” Howell, who oversaw consular evacuation operations after Kabul’s fall, emphasized.
A ground planning team, working tirelessly alongside stationed Marines, continuously adapted, but faced constant adjustments, Howell added.
While top military officials, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, suggested that initiating the NEO earlier could have averted much of the chaos, the State Department has not acknowledged any undue delay in requesting military action.
In response to the new testimonies, a State Department official told CNN: “Each of the current and former Department officials interviewed by the Committee worked alongside thousands of other personnel from the Department and the military to evacuate nearly 124,000 U.S. citizens, Afghan allies, and international partners.”
The Taliban’s control over access points to the airport, coupled with shifting entry guidelines, exacerbated the situation. Desperate crowds surrounded airport barriers, with tens of thousands breaching them and flooding into the passenger terminal at one point, Howell recounted.
“We had to, I would say, create from scratch tactical operations that would get our priority people into the airport,” DeHart, who served as deputy to acting deputy secretary Bass at the time, explained.
While DeHart acknowledged the unprecedented circumstances, he asserted that the State Department’s response was systematic and proactive.
Guidelines on who could enter the airport compound changed frequently. Initially, women and children were admitted based on humanitarian grounds, but as the influx overwhelmed resources, admission criteria became stricter.
“That was very difficult for consular officers, you know, to realize that maybe they just turned away somebody that now could be admitted, or had admitted somebody that now would be turned away,” DeHart remarked. “On a human level, that’s quite frustrating, but it was required because of the circumstances.”
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
