White House: ‘There Was a Lot of Confusion’ But We Couldn’t Have Prevented Kabul Airport Attack

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that, “barring any decision that could have impacted mission success, there wasn’t much that could have been done to prevent” the Kabul airport attack from happening, “And there was a lot of confusion outside the gate, but inside that gate, the rules of engagement were clear.”

Host Jake Tapper said, “Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover’s mom said that he reported to her that it was just chaos, the line of — the chain of command was unclear, that they were sitting ducks. And we’ve heard other things since then. I understand that you’d rather talk and the president would rather talk about the decision to end the war in Afghanistan. I think a lot of people are concerned about how it happened, the implementation of the withdrawal and why it seemed so chaotic and why warnings about suicide bombers might not have been heeded, and the rest.”

Kirby responded, “Central Command, who was the overarching military command, did a pretty exhaustive investigation of this, Jake, and they determined, that, barring any decision that could have impacted mission success, there wasn’t much that could have been done to prevent that attack from coming, as tragic as it was. And there was a lot of confusion outside the gate, but inside that gate, the rules of engagement were clear. The commanders were on the ground, at the moment of the explosion, there were quite a few commanders there in charge and leading. And of course, everybody responded bravely after the attack. So, I understand, again, the pain, and we understand the anguish. Nobody can replace the loss that these families have suffered, but there was an exhaustive investigation. CENTCOM and the Army tried to learn from that, and we’ll continue to carry those lessons with us forward.”

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