Prematurely abandoning Bagram airport is a huge Biden error
Having one airport available make it easier to control for the Taliban and way worse for the poor Americans and Afghans that supported us still there.
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carpediem · M
Bagram, as I understand it, was the most secure place in the entire damned country. Here's one reason:
On Wednesday afternoon, at a joint press conference, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley were asked about the decision to evacuate from Karzai International instead of Bagram. Lloyd didn’t address the question. Milley’s answer was a mouthful, but the bottom line is that there weren’t enough troops.
“If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going,” Milley said, that would require “a significant number of military forces,” so “you had to collapse one or the other.”
Milley also said the generals “estimated that the risk” of going out of Bagram or Karzai International “was about the same,” but he also acknowledged that President Biden did not leave enough troops for a scenario in which an evacuation was necessary to hold Bagram, protect the embassy, and protect Karzai International.
Milley said their mission was to keep the embassy open and get the level of “troops down to a 600–700 number.”
In other words...he screwed up.
On Wednesday afternoon, at a joint press conference, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley were asked about the decision to evacuate from Karzai International instead of Bagram. Lloyd didn’t address the question. Milley’s answer was a mouthful, but the bottom line is that there weren’t enough troops.
“If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going,” Milley said, that would require “a significant number of military forces,” so “you had to collapse one or the other.”
Milley also said the generals “estimated that the risk” of going out of Bagram or Karzai International “was about the same,” but he also acknowledged that President Biden did not leave enough troops for a scenario in which an evacuation was necessary to hold Bagram, protect the embassy, and protect Karzai International.
Milley said their mission was to keep the embassy open and get the level of “troops down to a 600–700 number.”
In other words...he screwed up.