The US Did Not Expect Such a Rapid Takeover of Afghanistan

No one in the world expected the speed with which the cities fell as a result of the Taliban takeover, Biden's adviser says. Washington did not expect the Taliban to seize power in Afghanistan so quickly, national security adviser to US President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, told NBC. "Of course, the speed at which the cities fell was much higher than anyone expected, like the Afghans themselves and many analysts who closely followed this problem," he said. "It's certainly the case that the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated, including the Afghans, including many of the analysts who monitored the situation," he noted. According to him, the Americans "spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to provide the Afghan national security forces with the best technology, better training and potential," but despite this, "they could not give them the will (to fight - ed.)." "And they (the Afghan forces) decided in the end that they would not fight for Kabul and for the country. And this allowed the Taliban to enter Kabul very quickly," Sullivan said. Biden's adviser believes that the continued presence of the United States in Afghanistan would not improve this situation. "What we have learned in the last two weeks: if we had stayed for another year, or two, or five, or ten, no training, equipment, money or lives sacrificed to the United States would have put the Afghan army in a position where it would save the country on their own," he said. In his opinion, the worst scenario for the United States would be to send thousands of new soldiers to Afghanistan. "The president had a bad choice, and the president chose to return the troops home, get us out of this civil war, get our diplomats out of the embassy and finally call on the Afghans to fight for themselves," he said. Sullivan is confident that Biden chose the best possible option and will insist on it. He also confirmed that the United States removed all diplomats and civilian personnel from the premises of the embassy in Kabul and transferred them to the international airport. Meanwhile, the media reported that the American military had to interrupt the evacuation from the Kabul airport due to the chaos that reigned on the runway. Thousands of Afghans reportedly flooded the airport in hopes of fleeing the country after the Taliban seized power. Kabul Airport has suspended civil flights.