Mike Morell, former Acting and Deputy Director of the CIA, tells Brian Kilmeade that blaming the collapse of Afghanistan on a failure of the intelligence community absolutely infuriates him. Morell said the intelligence community for the last 20 years has been more pessimistic than any other organization in the US government about whether victory was possible in Afghanistan. Morell admitted he doesn’t know exactly what the intel community told President Biden prior to his decision but the important question is when did the clock start on the Taliban taking over. Morell said he is hearing the intel community said it would take 90 days and if the clock started in April when President Biden made his announcement of withdrawing troops then that would bode well for the intelligence community’s assessment. Morell took issue with President Biden saying we were prepared for every contingency. Morell said, “If this is being prepared for something, I’d like to know what not being prepared looks like.” When asked what the ramifications of the withdrawal will mean for America’s security, Morell said he is worried we will not have the resources to focus on Afghanistan and the rebirth of al-Qaida 3.0. Morell is deeply concerned that they will regenerate a homeland attack capability and feels we will be right back to where we were on September 10th, 2001, except with a better armed Taliban.
