The “blame game” has started in Washington.

From different parts of the security apparatus, clues are being scattered about who, how and when warned of the collapse of the previous government in Kabul.

You point your finger at others and try to save your skin.

After all, many fear that President Joe Biden will have to face personal consequences following the debacle in Afghanistan.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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One who is himself in the line of fire went public in the White House on Tuesday and did what the President himself had avoided after his address the day before: Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, faced the journalists.

When asked whether the White House had disregarded intelligence about the dire security situation in Afghanistan, he looked sternly and replied that he was not familiar with such assessments.

He will not comment on individual intelligence reports.

And he will certainly not talk publicly about what part of the security apparatus has done or not done because, from his point of view, you are “a team”.

Deliberately disregarded instructions?

One could understand this as a warning in the direction of all those people who, from his point of view, made themselves slender with all sorts of piercing. Sullivan later admitted that in due course the government would put the operation "in the whites", that is, subject it to intensive scrutiny. The Congress will also ensure this and a spin cycle. The allegation is in the room that the intelligence service information was deliberately disregarded at the political level in order to carry out the withdrawal plan.

The New York Times reported that individual services had already warned in July of a rapid collapse of the Afghan military and a growing risk for the capital. While in April the secret service director's annual report on the general threat situation stated that the government in Kabul would have to work hard to keep the Taliban at bay if the international armed forces withdraw their support, several services painted a more gloomy picture in July was: It had been questioned whether the Afghan armed forces could raise serious resistance and the government was able to hold the capital.

Specifically, a report said: The Afghan government was not prepared for an attack by the Taliban;

the more cities fell into the hands of the Islamists, the faster the collapse could occur.

There is a high risk that the government forces will fall apart.

The CIA reported in July that government forces had lost control of the roads leading into the capital.

In April, the services had assumed that it would take at least 18 months before the conquest of Kabul.

Never made a “clear prediction”

It is not known whether there were also more optimistic assessments on which the Biden administration relied. The president himself said on July 8th that the Taliban were unlikely to take power in all of Afghanistan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also told Congress in June, when the American forces were gradually being withdrawn, that he did not expect the security situation to deteriorate immediately. It could come to that, but not “from Friday to Monday”. Government employees meanwhile counter the breaches with hints that the services had never made a "clear prediction" when it would come to a takeover of power. Secret service experts point out that it is not their job to predict the date on which the presidential palace will be taken.

Sullivan also commented on the situation at Kabul airport, where the Americans flown out a total of 1,100 citizens on Tuesday. He was very cautious about the Taliban's pledges to let civilians into the airport unmolested so they could leave the country. The State Department has not ruled out the possibility of extending the operation beyond August 31. Its spokesman, Ned Price, announced that the former ambassador to Afghanistan, John Bass, was returning to Kabul for a short time to help coordinate the evacuation. He will help Ross Wilson, the acting head of the fuselage embassy outsourced to the airport.