Schiff: Afghanistan ‘Intelligence Was Pretty Good’ — Question Is Why Didn’t Biden Have Contingency Plans in Place

Thursday on “CNN Newsroom,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) sounded off on Gen. Mark Milley reportedly blaming the State Department for the botched withdrawal out of Afghanistan.

Schiff noted that the “intelligence was pretty good” and said there are “profound questions” about why the Biden administration didn’t have contingency plans in place for what was a “foreseeable” outcome.

“You know, looking at it from the intel perspective, I think the intelligence was pretty good,” Schiff remarked. “Now, that’s not to say that the intelligence agency predicted the Afghan government would fall in a matter of days, but over the last six to nine months, and really over the last couple of years, the intelligence community produced increasingly pessimistic assessments of whether the Afghan government would maintain itself and eventually how quickly it would fall. And so, I think there are profound questions that the military needs to answer as well as and the State Department about why the military didn’t have plans for this contingency when it was a foreseeable one, even if it wasn’t the most probable one and why the State Department didn’t move with greater alacrity to process the special immigrant visas and understand exactly where Americans were.”

“I think people should be held accountable,” he added.

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