WASHINGTON — General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an apparent admission of messy exit from Afghanistan, said that the collapse of the Afghan army happened at a much faster rate in the face of Taliban offense.
The role of the United States has been scrutinized and is still under scanner after the Taliban’s swift takeover of Kabul in Afghanistan. This was followed by an offensive action that saw the quick fall of the US-trained Afghan army.
“The collapse of the Afghan army happened at a much faster rate and [was] very unexpected by pretty much everybody,” said General Mark Milley.
“And then with that is the collapse of the Afghan government.”
As the U.S. completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, Milley earlier had said that he has “pain and anger” seeing what has happened in the war-torn country over the last 20 years.
He said that one of the “lessons learned” from the U.S. withdrawal from the war-ravaged country was the pitfalls realized in the Afghan security forces.
“The Army itself – the army and the police forces were a mirror image in many ways — and we created and developed forces that looked like Western forces,” Milley said.
“I think one of the big lessons learned here is maybe those forces were not designed appropriately for the type of mission.”
#GenMilley: We flew 387 U.S military C-17 and C-130 sorties and enabled 391 non-U.S. military sorties. A total of 778 sorties evacuated a total of 124,334 people, including American citizens, third country nationals, and Afghans designated by the Department of State. pic.twitter.com/6rJKdX8Q0O
— Department of Defense
(@DeptofDefense) September 1, 2021
More than 25,000 Afghan refugees evacuated from Afghanistan are being housed in U.S. military bases around the world. Milley informed that the Ramstein base in Germany has already processed about 30,000 individuals.
Milley also visited the base in Germany on Sept. 5 to check out the proceedings with the refugees.
“Chairman of @thejointstaff #GenMilley visited @RamsteinAirBase to see firsthand what the U.S. and other regional partners and allies are doing to support #OperationAlliesRefuge,” tweeted the U.S. Department of Defense.
About 200 of the 30,000 Afghan refugees processed at the Ramstein base are now under further background checks.
“I think they’ve had a couple of hundred … who popped ‘red,’” Milley said.
During his interview with the local media, Milley also recognized the 13 U.S. service members who were killed during a suicide bombing in Kabul. Besides this, the top U.S. general also predicted a civil war in Afghanistan soon.
“My military estimate is…that the conditions are likely to develop of a civil war,” said Milley.
On Sept. 1, Milley said about the end of the military mission in Afghanistan.
“800,000 of us in uniform served in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, our nation spent over a trillion dollars, and most importantly, 2,461 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines were killed in action,” said Milley.
(With inputs from ANI)
Edited by Saptak Datta and Ritaban Misra
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