CIA director ‘proud’ of Afghanistan analysis despite disastrous Taliban takeover
by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter |
| July 24, 2022 07:00 AM
CIA Director William Burns said he is “very proud” of the agency’s analysis in Afghanistan in 2021 despite being blindsided by the swift collapse of the Afghan government and failing to predict how quickly the Taliban would take Kabul.
The Taliban rapidly took over Afghanistan in mid-August amid a chaotic U.S. military withdrawal, and a suicide bombing by ISIS-K late that month killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghan civilians as the United States led evacuation operations at the airport, with the Taliban providing security outside.
Hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies and interpreters were still in the country when the U.S. left before the end of August.
Burns said Wednesday during an Aspen Security Forum discussion that he was “very proud … of the analysis, with all of its imperfections, that we tried to provide to policymakers over the six months leading up to the withdrawal.”
The CIA director prefaced this by admitting the agency had not predicted the Taliban would take over the country as fast as they did and that “all of us have lessons to learn from experiences like that.” He suggested that the CIA had at least gotten it less wrong than other parts of the U.S. government.
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