During an interview with the Fox News Channel aired on Thursday’s broadcast of “Special Report,” former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie (Ret.) stated that waiting to evacuate people from Afghanistan until “after we had already given away Bagram airfield, after we had already drawn down to a very low footprint in the country” “led to the events of August 2021 directly.”
McKenzie said, “I have a lot of regrets about how it ended in Afghanistan. I have a regret with the basic decision, which I think was the wrong decision. And I have a — and I particularly regret that we did not choose to begin to evacuate our people, our embassy personnel, our American citizens, and our at-risk Afghans at the time we made the decision to bring out our combat forces. I think that was a serious mistake, and I think that led to the events of August 2021 directly.”
McKenzie also stated, “I think it’s a case of American exceptionalism or American arrogance — depending on your perspective — to believe that you can actually withdraw, beaten from the field of battle and still maintain a large political platform in the country you’re actually retreating from. I go back to the basic decision to wait so very late to begin to bring people out, after we had already given away Bagram airfield, after we had already drawn down to a very low footprint in the country. I think those were the decisions that led to the scenes at the airport in Kabul.”
He also said, “I believe history is going to view the decision to come out of Afghanistan and the way that we did and the manner that we were directed to come out as a fatal flaw, and I think history is going to be very hard on that.”
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