A week after the fall of Afghanistan, the response from the Biden administration was floundering as thousands of Americans were still trapped in Kabul and other places in the country. With the State Department telling Americans they needed to brave the streets and the Taliban in order to get to the airport and home, ABC’s Martha Raddatz pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday’s This Week in an effort to find out why the world’s most capable military was not trying to save its people.
Raddatz’s first question regarded the administration’s adherence to sticking with the arbitrary August 31 deadline and if they planned to stay beyond that date to save Americans. Austin was disturbingly non-committal:
We're going to try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen, who wants to get out, out. And we continue to look at different ways to – and creative ways to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield.
The way the administration was saying they were helping the Americans “who want to get out” made it sound as though they planned to broadly deem anyone not at the airport by that time as wanting to stay. Austin added credence to this fear after he refused to say if President Biden would be willing to extend the timeframe.
One of the biggest problems we’ve witnessed with the inept evacuation was that other countries were sending out troops to rescue their citizens and America was not. “Why aren't American troops able to go out into Kabul and help those Americans, help those Afghans who helped Americans get to the airport,” Raddatz wanted to know.
Austin tried to claim that they were doing that by citing ONE helicopter mission, but Raddatz was not going to let him off the hook and dropped a major fact about the mission:
AUSTIN: We have been out. You saw evidence of an operation the other day where we flew a couple helicopters over to -- it was a very short distance.
RADDATZ: About a thousand yards, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah. But certainly, it helped 169 American citizens get into the gate without – without issues.
Raddatz also confronted Austin when he tried to argue it was safe for Americans to travel to the airport themselves without security, calling out how Americans were being beaten in the streets by the Taliban. He grossly tried to downplay the attacks:
RADDATZ: You've got tens of thousands of people out there desperate to get to the airport, surrounded by the Taliban. So, why can't the U.S. send convoys out there?
AUSTIN: If you have an American passport and if you have the right credentials, the Taliban have been allowing people to pass safely through.
RADDATZ: Not in all cases.
AUSTIN: There's no such thing as an absolute in this kind of environment, as you would imagine Martha. There have been incidents of people having some tough encounters with Taliban.
In stark contrast to Austin's lack of commitment to sending out convoys to rescue Americans, veteran and current GOP senator, Joni Ernst called for the U.S. military to send them out and if they need to send in more troops, so be it. pic.twitter.com/iqZe9gINm7
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) August 22, 2021
The Defense Secretary’s plan was to just call up the Taliban and grovel for them to cut it out.
“But further out into Kabul, there are people desperate to get in there. We’re the most capable military in the world,” Raddatz pushed back. Austin proceeded to argue that the most capable military in the world needed to stay at the airport.
After her interview with Austin, Raddatz spoke to Army veteran and current Republican senator, Joni Ernst (IA), who said they should be sending out military convoys to rescue Americans and if they needed to send in more troops, then so be it.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s This Week
August 22, 2021
9:05:23 a.m. EasternMARTHA RADDATZ: I sat down exclusively with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon to see how that can be done. And began by asking is all will be evacuated by the August 31 deadline.
[Cuts to video]
DEF. SEC. LLOYD AUSTIN: We're going to try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen, who wants to get out, out. And we continue to look at different ways to – and creative ways to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield.
RADDATZ: You said American citizens. What about those Afghans? What about those interpreters? What about the people who are desperately calling?
AUSTIN: Absolutely. The people that are in the special immigrant visa program are very, very important to us. And these would be the interpreters and many of the staff that supported our embassy and other embassies by the way. We want to evacuate them as well.
RADDATZ: Will you ask the president to extend the deadline if they're not out?
AUSTIN: We'll continue to assess the situation and again work as hard as we can to get as many people out as possible and, as we approach that deadline, we'll make a recommendation to the president.
RADDATZ: Why aren't American troops able to go out into Kabul and help those Americans, help those Afghans who helped Americans get to the airport?
AUSTIN: We have been out. You saw evidence of an operation the other day where we flew a couple helicopters over to -- it was a very short distance.
RADDATZ: About a thousand yards, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah. But certainly, it helped 169 American citizens get into the gate without – without issues.
RADDATZ: You've got tens of thousands of people out there desperate to get to the airport, surrounded by the Taliban. So, why can't the U.S. send convoys out there.
AUSTIN: If you have an American passport and if you have the right credentials, the Taliban have been allowing people to pass safely through.
RADDATZ: Not in all cases.
AUSTIN: There's no such thing as an absolute in this kind of environment, as you would imagine Martha. There have been incidents of people having some tough encounters with Taliban. As we learn about those incidents, we certainly go back and engage the Taliban leadership and press home to them that our expectation is they allow our people with the appropriate credentials to get through the checkpoints.
RADDATZ: But further out into Kabul, there are people desperate to get in there. We’re the most capable military in the world.
AUSTIN: We are. That most capable military in the world is going to make sure that airfield remains secure and safe. And we're going to defend that airfield. We're looking at every means possible to get American citizens, third-country nationals, special immigrant visa applicants into the airfield.
(…)
