Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that it is “pathetic” for President Biden to try to blame former President Trump for the unraveling mess in Afghanistan, and said the administration should “crush” the Taliban forces trying to take over Kabul.
Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Pompeo said the Trump administration was dedicated to a conditions-based drawdown that the Biden administration appears to have abandoned.
“The plan should have been, much like we had, that we had an orderly conditions-based way to think about how to draw down our forces there,” Mr. Pompeo said.
Mr. Pompeo said the administration now should “go crush these Taliban that are surrounding Kabul.”
“If it is like the Carter administration and Obama administration and now what appears to be the first seven months of the Biden administration the Taliban will feel free to do this,” he said. “I can assure you if I were still Secretary of State with a commander in chief like President Trump the Taliban would have understood that there were real costs to pay if there were plots against the United States of America.”
The nation woke up Sunday to images of the American embassy in Kabul being evacuated as Taliban fighters rushed into the Afghan capital in an attempt to overthrow the government.
American diplomats burned documents and the U.S. military rushed to evacuate personnel.
Mr. Biden announced Saturday the U.S. would deploy a total of about 5,000 additional U.S. troops to assist with the drawdown of U.S. personnel as they are evacuated ahead of the sustained Taliban offensive.
Mr. Trump also wanted to pull troops out of Afghanistan, railing against the idea of the United States being the world’s police.
Mr. Pompeo, however, said the Taliban understood the Trump administration would have responded with force if they ran afoul of the deal they cut in 2020.
Mr. Biden blamed Mr. Trump over the weekend for leaving the extremist group “in the strongest position militarily since 2001” when he left office.
Mr. Pompeo said he wouldn’t let his ten-year-old son get away with this “pathetic blame-shifting.”
“He should be less focused on trying to blame this on someone else than on solving the problem of making sure we protect and defend American security,” he said. “It is worth noting this did not happen on our watch.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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