Politico | Biden’s team wasted precious time on evacuating Afghans, insiders say
- Flaws in the planning and execution of the US withdrawal have led to wrenching scenes of Afghans clinging to American planes as they race out of Kabul
- Officials did not have a comprehensive list of Afghans who had worked with the US and did not respond to offers of help from activist groups
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Alexander Ward on politico.com on August 17, 2021.
During an inter-agency meeting early this summer, a Defence Department official was asked if the Pentagon had a list of all Afghans who worked alongside the United States during the 20-year war. The Pentagon representative responded that such a list did not exist.
Then during another inter-agency meeting in early July, this one classified and conducted via video conference, a State Department staff member detailed how they would eventually relocate vulnerable Afghans seeking special visas to the US.
The official asserted that Kabul would not fall for six to 12 months, so they had plenty of time to hire more staff and position consular officers to the capital to process the 20,000-person backlog.
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At least 7 people killed at Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans try to flee Taliban: US officials
And in late July, two weeks before the Taliban captured their first provincial capital, a coalition of groups that work with special visa applicants wrote multiple emails to the State Department’s Afghanistan Task Force offering their help. Those emails were never returned.