Gen. Keane: Biden 'blowing off' conditions of Afghanistan withdrawal
Fox News senior strategic analyst reacts to the president's defense of quick action in Kabul.
President Biden’s address to the nation Tuesday following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan hid the fact that he completely ignored the terms of which the U.S. agreed to pull out, Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane revealed on "The Story."
GEN. JACK KEANE: It is a fact that the president blew off the military advisers and his intelligence advisers about withdrawing out of Afghanistan. They wanted to stay. The CIA director, his CIA director said if the Taliban takes over, a significant risk to the United States will be there because of safe havens now back in Afghanistan. So that's true today. That's the risk we have today out of the mouth of his CIA director as that pertains to President Trump. I didn't agree with him, his people negotiating with the Taliban. He's blowing off the fact while, yes, there was a date, certain, 1 May, but it was based on what? It was based on conditions -- the Taliban had to do what.
I read the four-page document that Zal Khalilzad, the ambassador who negotiated that deal when it was a draft document. I read it in a hotel and in Washington, D.C., just him and me. And I told him it was a surrender document. But here were the conditions. The conditions were to… reject al Qaeda, enter into a partner-sharing arrangement with the leaders in Kabul. Neither one of those conditions were met despite the fact that the government in Kabul was forced to give up 5,000 prisoners. So if those conditions were not met, Biden looked at that and just blew those conditions off, just like he blew off the military advice and his intelligence advice and then set an arbitrary date of 31 August. And what did that do? That denied the Afghan security forces getting intelligence and robust air support to stop the major offensive, which was already ongoing. He's blowing all of that off.
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