US spy agencies failed to predict Kabul’s rapid collapse: WSJ

Leading US spy agencies failed to forecast the rapid collapse of Kabul and the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban prior to the final withdrawal of American forces, showed a review of wide-ranging summaries of classified material by The Wall Street Journal.

The findings of the review of nearly two dozen intelligence reports, obtained by the WSJ, showed four key intelligence agencies had predicted that the Taliban would take over the government in Kabul but did not anticipate it would happen in mid-August, when US troops were still present there.

The US daily newspaper said the four agencies — the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the State Department’s Intelligence bureau — instead offered “scattershot assessments” of the staying power of the Afghan military and government.

According to the WSJ, the CIA published a report just a month after US President Joe Biden announced his plans to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, estimating that the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani would fall by the end of the year. This is while Ghani fled the country as the Taliban took over on August 15.

The CIA, as the paper said, also continued to release reports in the subsequent months predicting the Afghan government would collapse, but all estimations were for after American troops finished their exit.

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According to The Journal, the DIA, which serves the Pentagon, was even more optimistic than the CIA and predicted in a June intelligence report the Taliban would attempt to take over Kabul incrementally over the next 12 months.

The DIA had reportedly said the Afghan military would be “likely to hold Kabul while Taliban focuses elsewhere.”

The daily paper said the summaries of the intelligence reports offered an insight into the advice being given to Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump as they weighed how to safely bring troops home from a two-decade invasion.

"The result has been something of a blame game as politicians and military officers said they were never warned such a rapid collapse could happen," The Journal said.

“They extrapolated from Taliban advances from spring 2020 until July, and forecast that the government in Kabul was unlikely to survive once US troops left. They differed in how long that would take - and none predicted that the Taliban would race into the capital by August 15 while American forces were still on the ground.”

Representatives of the four US spy agencies all declined comment to The Wall Street Journal.  

UN chief warns of ‘global terrorist threat’ in Afghanistan, urges protection of rights

“We cannot and must not abandon the people of Afghanistan,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

The United States and its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext that the Taliban militants were harboring al-Qaeda. The invasion removed the Taliban from power but it worsened the security situation in the country.

The government of Afghanistan rapidly collapsed on August 15 in the face of the lightning advances of the Taliban that followed Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops. The Taliban announced the formation of a caretaker government on September 7.

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