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KABUL: U.S. Republican Senator Darrell Issa is slamming the Afghanistan dissent cable to which Secretary of State Antony Blinken allowed congressional access saying Biden administration knowingly allowed Afghanistan to collapse.
Calling the cable “embarrassing”, Senator Issa said it debunks Biden administration’s narrative that it was caught off guard by the country’s swift collapse in 2021.
Issa, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News that he was the first committee member to view the dissent channel cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and Washington’s response.
The State Department’s “dissent channel” warned about the possibility of a rapid Taliban advance as the U.S. left the country, which President Joe Biden and other top officials downplayed at the time.
“What we saw was their prediction, with great accuracy, of exactly what was going to happen and what the outcome would be if they did not change their directions,” the congressman said. “We saw a response from the office of the State Department saying, ‘We hear you, and we agree, basically, we don’t take it lightly.’ And then, obviously, we know what they did and didn’t do, which was totally insufficient for the warning that was given.”
Issa said the cable also revealed that “there was no expectation by the State Department that there would be sustainability” in the region and knew that the billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment that was left behind was going to fall into the Taliban’s hands.
Issa said the cable went out on July 13, 2021, the response came back a week later on July 20, and Kabul officially fell weeks later on Aug. 15.
Dissent cable debunks the Biden administration’s narrative that it was caught off guard by the country’s swift collapse in 2021, Darrell Issa, a US congressman said on Tuesday.
Issa, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News that he was the first committee member to view the dissent channel cable from the US Embassy in Kabul and Washington’s response.
The cable warned about the possibility of a rapid Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan advance as the US left the country, which President Biden and other top officials downplayed at the time.
“What we saw was their prediction, with great accuracy, of exactly what was going to happen and what the outcome would be if they did not change their directions,” the congressman said. “We saw a response from the office of the State Department saying, ‘We hear you, and we agree, basically, we don’t take it lightly.’ And then, obviously, we know what they did and didn’t do, which was totally insufficient for the warning that was given.”
