Before seizing control of Afghanistan’s capital, Taliban leaders offered Joe Biden full control of Kabul and its airport until all Americans, afghan allies, and troops were safely evacuated – but he declined, according to a new report.
A new Washington Post report reveals that the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan, including last week’s suicide boming that killed 13 U.S. troops, could have been avoided if Biden had wanted it to.
As the Taliban began taking over Afghanistan, senior U.S. military leaders secretly met with Taliban political leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Doha, Qatar on behalf of Biden.
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During the meeting, Baradar offered for the United States to have full control of Kabul until all U.S. troops had withdrawn.
According to the report, however, Biden quickly dismissed the offer.
The report cites a high-level U.S. official who was in attendance at the meeting.
In an arranged in-person meeting, senior U.S. military leaders in Doha – including Kenneth F. McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command – spoke with Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Taliban’s political wing.
“We have a problem,” Baradar said at the meeting.
“We have two options to deal with it: You [the United States military] take responsibility for securing Kabul or you have to allow us to do it.”
The report states that “throughout the day, Biden had remained resolute in his decision to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan.”
“The collapse of the Afghan government hadn’t changed his mind.”
Breitbart.com reports: As the days unfolded, the security in Kabul became increasingly hostile, culminating in the terrorist attack last week that killed 13 American servicemembers and 160 Afghans. According to a report from Politico last week, the Biden administration entrusted the Taliban so intensely with securing the city that they were allegedly given a list of names of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies in the region.
When pressed about this list, Biden did not deny its existence:
There have been occasions where our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said, for example, “This bus is coming through with X number of people on it made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through.”
So yes there have been occasions like that, and to the best of my knowledge, in those cases, when the bulk of that has occurred, they have been let through. But I can’t tell you with any certitude that there has actually been a list of names. There may have been, but I know of no circumstance. That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.
Republicans on Twitter seized on the Washington Post’s report and put the Biden administration on blast for not taking the Taliban’s initial offer:
