Dem Rep. Crow: We Have to ‘Open up’ Path to Get to Airport in Afghanistan, Which Will Require More Troops – Can’t Have ‘Arbitrary’ Exit

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) argued the U.S. should not abide by an “arbitrary” deadline of August 31 and instead must stay in Afghanistan as long as it has to in order to evacuate Americans and U.S. allies and partners. Crow also called for opening up routes for people to get to the airport in Kabul and said doing so will require additional troops.

Crow said, “[W]e have the power and the capability, the combat power, the troops, and the resources to actually accomplish this mission. But we have to have the will to do it, and we have to make the commitment to do it. That’s why these arbitrary deadlines of August 31, I don’t believe in that. I think we should say we will do this until it’s done, we will accomplish this mission because we have the resources to do it. The Taliban have never defeated us on the field of battle and they know that. They might have won the long-term battle here, but that’s different from the ability to take us on face-to-face. We have the ability to make sure we secure that airport, that we open up lines of communication, lines of movement to that airport, establish safe zones, and do it as long as we need to to get everybody out. We have the ability and capability to do it. We just have to do it.”

He later added, “I’m certainly very upset that we’re in this position. Because we actually didn’t need to be in this position had the administration started the evacuation back in April…we could have most of these folks out and this would be a very different situation. But that’s not going to help us now. What we need to do is be singularly focused on the mission of getting folks out. We have the ability to do it. I don’t think 5,000, 6,000 troops is going to do the job. I think we’re going to have to send in some more as well as some additional assets to make sure we’re extending that perimeter out. … We have to extend that perimeter out and open up some mechanism for folks to get to the airport.”

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