Pompeo on Taliban takeover of Afghanistan: Biden admin ‘didn’t project American strength’
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the Taliban spokesperson promising a more secure Afghanistan and President Biden shifting blame on the terrorist organization’s victory over the nation.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told "America Reports" on Tuesday the Biden administration did not "project strength" after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
GEN. PETRAEUS CALLS OUT BIDEN'S 'DISASTROUS' AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL: THIS IS A 'DUNKIRK MOMENT'
MIKE POMPEO: Well, Sandra, his math is right about the number of troops that we had withdrawn, his logic is absolutely pathetic--that we had drawn down from about 15,000 to about 2,500. And we had kept a lid on this thing. We had kept the strategic stability that mattered to the United States. President Trump wanted to get out. He wanted to get out when he started campaigning. He knew it was the right thing to do. We were executing that mission, but we had done so in a way that had made clear to the Taliban that there would be enormous costs connected to what they did if they touched America and if they killed an American or if they even so much as scared an American.
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And for 11-plus months, from February of 2020, there wasn't a single American killed after we'd cut the deal with the Taliban because the Taliban knew that that deal meant one thing: It meant that they had a set of obligations. If they failed to live up to them, there would be enormous cost imposed on that. And we did. They broke some of it while we were still in office-- their power-sharing commitments, their commitments with respect to how they would respond to certain actions.
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And when they did, we imposed costs on the Taliban and including on its senior leaders. This [the Biden] administration begged. They apologized. They didn't project American strength. And so as they began to make the decision to go down from 2,500 where we had achieved a leveled space where we could secure the American embassy, prevent exactly what you've seen these past 96 hours, they saw a Biden administration that was weak.
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You can see what's happening today around that airport. I know that airport very well. What's happening around that airport today is dangerous. There are still thousands of Americans that are going to really struggle to get there. And I pray that we get this right. The mere fact that they withdrew from 2,500 [and] have now had to put back five or six thousand American soldiers, tells you how terribly executed this important strategic mission was for the United States of America.
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