Intelligence Warned of Afghan Military Collapse, Despite Biden’s Assurances

WASHINGTON — Classified assessments by American spy agencies implicit the summertime painted an progressively grim representation of the imaginable of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the accelerated illness of the Afghan military, adjacent arsenic President Biden and his advisers said publically that was improbable to hap arsenic quickly, according to existent and erstwhile American authorities officials.

By July, galore quality reports grew much pessimistic, questioning whether immoderate Afghan information forces would muster superior absorption and whether the authorities could clasp connected successful Kabul, the capital. President Biden said connected July 8 that the Afghan authorities was improbable to autumn and that determination would beryllium nary chaotic evacuations of Americans akin to the extremity of the Vietnam War.

The drumbeat of warnings implicit the summertime rise questions astir wherefore Biden medication officials, and subject planners successful Afghanistan, seemed ill-prepared to woody with the Taliban’s last propulsion into Kabul, including a nonaccomplishment to guarantee information astatine the main airdrome and rushing thousands much troops backmost to the state to support the United States’ last exit.

One study successful July — arsenic dozens of Afghan districts were falling and Taliban fighters were laying siege to respective large cities — laid retired the increasing risks to Kabul, noting that the Afghan authorities was unprepared for a Taliban assault, according to a idiosyncratic acquainted with the intelligence.

Intelligence agencies predicted that should the Taliban prehend cities, a cascading illness could hap rapidly and the Afghan information forces were astatine precocious hazard of falling apart. It is unclear whether different reports during this play presented a much optimistic representation astir the quality of the Afghan subject and the authorities successful Kabul to withstand the Taliban.

A humanities investigation provided to Congress concluded that the insurgents had learned lessons from their takeover of the state successful the 1990s. This time, the study said, the Taliban would archetypal unafraid borderline crossings, commandeer provincial capitals and prehend swaths of the country’s northbound earlier moving successful connected Kabul, a prediction that proved accurate.

But cardinal American decisions were made agelong earlier July, erstwhile the statement among quality agencies was that the Afghan authorities could bent connected for arsenic agelong arsenic 2 years, which would person near ample clip for an orderly exit. On April 27, erstwhile the State Department ordered the departure of nonessential unit from the embassy successful Kabul, the wide quality appraisal was inactive that a Taliban takeover was astatine slightest 18 months away, according to medication officials.

One elder medication official, who spoke connected the information of anonymity to sermon the classified quality reports, said that adjacent by July, arsenic the concern grew much volatile, quality agencies ne'er offered a wide prediction of an imminent Taliban takeover. The authoritative said their assessments were besides not fixed a “high confidence” judgment, the agencies’ highest level of certainty.

As precocious arsenic a week earlier Kabul’s fall, the wide quality investigation was that a Taliban takeover was not yet inevitable, the authoritative said.

Spokeswomen for the C.I.A. and the manager of nationalist quality declined to sermon the assessments fixed to the White House. But intelligence officials acknowledged that their agencies’ investigation had been sober and that the assessments had changed successful caller weeks and months.

During his code connected Monday, Mr. Biden said that his medication “planned for each contingency” successful Afghanistan but that the concern “did unfold much rapidly than we had anticipated.”

Facing wide grounds of the illness of Afghan forces, American officials person begun to formed blasted internally, including statements from the White House that person suggested an quality failure. Such finger-pointing often occurs aft large nationalist information breakdowns, but it volition instrumentality weeks oregon months for a much implicit representation to look of the decision-making successful the Biden medication that led to the chaos successful Kabul successful caller days.

Intelligence agencies person agelong predicted an eventual Taliban victory, adjacent earlier President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Biden decided to retreat forces. Those estimates provided a scope of timelines. While they raised questions astir the volition of the Afghan information forces to combat without Americans by their side, they did not foretell a illness wrong weeks.

But successful caller months, assessments became ever much pessimistic arsenic the Taliban made larger gains, according to existent and erstwhile officials. The reports this summertime questioned successful stark presumption the volition of Afghan information forces to combat and the quality of the Kabul authorities to clasp power. With each study of wide desertions, a erstwhile authoritative said, the Afghan authorities looked little stable.

Another C.I.A. study successful July noted that the information forces and cardinal authorities had mislaid power of the roads starring into Kabul and assessed that the viability of the cardinal authorities was successful superior jeopardy. Other reports by the State Department’s quality and probe part besides noted the nonaccomplishment of Afghan forces to combat the Taliban and suggested the deteriorating information conditions could pb to the illness of the government, according to authorities officials.

“The concern of quality is not to accidental you cognize connected Aug. 15 the Afghan government’s going to fall,” said Timothy S. Bergreen, a erstwhile unit manager for the House Intelligence Committee. “But what everybody knew is that without the stiffening of the planetary forces and specifically our forces, the Afghans were incapable of defending oregon governing themselves.”

Afghanistan received small attraction successful the annual menace appraisal released successful April by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; but the little treatment was dire, noting the Taliban was assured it could execute a subject victory.

“The Taliban is apt to marque gains connected the battlefield, and the Afghan authorities volition conflict to clasp the Taliban astatine bay if the conjugation withdraws support,” the study said.

But existent and erstwhile officials said that portion it was existent that the C.I.A. predicted a illness of the Afghan government, it was often hard to get bureau analysts to intelligibly foretell however rapidly that would occur, particularly arsenic Mr. Trump and past Mr. Biden made decisions connected however accelerated to gully down troops.

Two erstwhile elder Trump medication officials who reviewed immoderate of the C.I.A.’s assessments of Afghanistan said the quality agencies did present warnings astir the spot of the Afghan authorities and information forces. But the bureau resisted giving an nonstop clip framework and the assessments could often beryllium interpreted successful a assortment of ways, including concluding that Afghanistan could autumn rapidly oregon perchance implicit time.

Sharp disagreements person besides persisted successful the quality community. The C.I.A. for years has been pessimistic astir the grooming of the Afghan information forces. But the Defense Intelligence Agency and different quality shops wrong the Pentagon delivered much optimistic assessments astir the Afghans’ preparedness, according to existent and erstwhile officials.

Military and quality assessments predicting that the authorities successful Kabul could clasp connected astatine slightest a twelvemonth earlier a Taliban takeover were built connected a premise that proved to beryllium flawed: that the Afghan service would enactment up a fight.

“Most of the U.S. assessments wrong and extracurricular the U.S. authorities had focused connected however good the Afghan information forces would fare successful a combat with the Taliban. In reality, they ne'er truly fought” during the Taliban blitz crossed the country, said Seth G. Jones, an Afghanistan adept astatine the Center for Strategic and International Studies successful Washington.

Two decades ago, this dynamic played retired successful reverse. When U.S.-backed Afghan militias began capturing territory from the Taliban successful precocious 2001, Taliban fighters folded comparatively quickly, and some Kabul and Kandahar fell earlier the extremity of that year.

Some Taliban surrendered, immoderate switched sides, and acold larger numbers simply melted into the colonisation to statesman readying what would go a 20-year insurgency.

Intelligence officials person agelong observed that Afghans marque acold calculations astir who is apt to prevail successful a struggle and backmost the winning side, a maneuver that allows for battlefield gains to accumulate rapidly until a tipping constituent turns the combat into a rout, according to existent and erstwhile analysts.

At the halfway of the American nonaccomplishment successful Afghanistan was the inability to physique a information unit that could basal connected its own, but that mistake was compounded by Washington’s nonaccomplishment to perceive to those raising questions astir the Afghan military.

Part of the problem, according to erstwhile officials, is that the can-do cognition of the subject often got successful the mode of candid close assessments of however the Afghan information forces were doing. Though nary 1 was unsighted to desertions oregon battlefield losses, American commanders fixed the task of grooming the Afghan subject were reluctant to admit their efforts were failing.

Even those successful the subject skeptical of the skills of the Afghan information forces believed they would proceed to combat for a clip aft the Americans left.

For months, quality officials person been making comparisons betwixt the Afghan nationalist information forces and the South Vietnamese service astatine the extremity of the Vietnam War. It took 2 years for South Vietnam’s military, known by the American acronym ARVN, to illness aft the United States withdrew troops and fiscal support. Optimists believed the Afghan subject — with American backing — could past astir arsenic long. Pessimists thought it would beryllium acold shorter.

“For the past 2 oregon 3 years I person been ruefully remarking that A.N.S.F. is Afghan for ARVN,” said Mr. Bergreen, who worked connected quality matters connected Capitol Hill from 2003 to 2021. “There was an acknowledgment that the Afghan forces were not up to the semipermanent fight. But I don’t deliberation anyone expected them to melt distant rather that fast.”

Recent Taliban diplomatic maneuvers with different countries successful the region, astir notably China, lent an aerial of inevitability to a Taliban takeover that further demoralized Afghan authorities troops, Mr. Jones said.

In the end, analysts said, the Taliban won with the strategy that has truthful often proved palmy during Afghanistan’s galore decades of warfare — they outlasted their opponent.

“​​I americium not that amazed it was arsenic accelerated and sweeping arsenic it was,” Lisa Maddox, a erstwhile C.I.A. analyst. “The Taliban surely has shown their quality to persevere, hunker down and travel backmost adjacent aft they person been beaten back. And you person a colonisation that is truthful bushed and weary of struggle that they are going to flip and enactment the winning broadside truthful they tin survive.”