US Congressman Darrell Issa has slammed the Biden administration over what he said was an “embarrassing” response to the dissent cable that debunks the White House’s narrative that it was caught off guard by the swift collapse of Kabul in 2021.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Issa, who is a House Foreign Affairs Committee member, said he was the first committee member to view the US embassy staff in Kabul’s dissent cable and the State Department’s response.
This comes after committee chair Michael McCaul announced this week that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had granted House committee members access to view the cable and the response.
The dissent cable sent in July 2021 and signed by 23 embassy staff members and diplomats warned of the possibility of a rapid Taliban advance when the US pulled out troops from Afghanistan.
Issa said: “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.”
“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,” he said.
Issa said the State Department had redacted the names of signatories but the House committee does know that many of them were senior executive staffers. “They knew and understood that there was no way that the Afghan military was going to defend successfully. They did not disagree with that, and as a result, they knew that Kabul would fall within weeks, that the Taliban would do what they have done, which is to continue to kill and persecute individuals, and they allowed it to happen,” he said.
According to Issa, 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 US military equipment that was left behind was going to fall into the Taliban’s hands.
He said the cable was sent on July 13, 2021, the response came back a week later on July 20, and Kabul officially fell weeks later on August 15.
“Every prediction came through, including the quick collapse of the Afghan army,” he said.
Issa said he was now trying to get the two documents declassified so that the families of the 13 US service members who were killed in an explosion at Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal can get to the bottom of what happened.
The explosion, which was claimed by Daesh, also killed over 170 people from Afghanistan.
Issa meanwhile said the document is “classified because it’s embarrassing.”
Issa’s communications director, Jonathan Wilcox meanwhile said the document “obliterates the administration’s big lie on Afghanistan – that this could not have been foretold, nobody could have seen this coming, nothing could have [been] done to prevent it”
“We know it was received. We know it wasn’t followed,” he continued. “Their personnel on the ground saw this, reported it, warned them and were ignored.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the State Department accused Republicans of distorting the truth.
“We strongly disagree with the characterizations from some Members of Congress on the contents of the Afghanistan dissent cable,” a spokesperson said.
“As Secretary Blinken previously stated in public testimony before Congress, the cable did not suggest the Afghan government and security forces were going to collapse prior to our departure. As the Secretary also said publicly, the Department agreed with the concerns raised in the cable, and in fact, a number of the recommendations the cable made were already in motion. The Secretary personally read and oversaw a response to the dissent cable, and its contents were factored into his thinking.”
“Taking the step of allowing Members of Congress to view the cable, despite the risk that it compromises the purpose of the Dissent Channel, was an extraordinary accommodation and it’s disappointing some Members are choosing to distort the content of the confidential cable,” the spokesperson added.
