WASHINGTON (The Wall Street Journal) – Leading U.S. intelligence agencies failed to predict the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan prior to the final withdrawal of American troops and instead offered scattershot assessments of the staying power of the Afghan military and government, a review of wide-ranging summaries of classified material by The Wall Street Journal shows.
The nearly two dozen intelligence assessments from four different agencies haven’t been previously reported.
The Wall Street Journal reviewed assessments from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the State Department’s intelligence bureau.
The assessments charted Taliban advances from spring 2020 through this July, forecasting that the group would continue to gain ground and that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul was unlikely to survive absent U.S. support.
The analyses, however, differed over how long the Afghan government and military could hold on, the summaries show, with none foreseeing the group’s lightning sweep into the Afghan capital by Aug. 15 while U.S. forces remained on the ground.
A month after President Biden announced his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops, for instance, the Central Intelligence Agency issued a May 17 report titled “Government at Risk of Collapse Following U.S. Withdrawal.”
The report estimated that the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani would fall by year’s end, according to a summary.
Less than a month later, the agency issued another analysis titled: “Afghanistan: Assessing Prospects for a Complete Taliban Takeover Within Two Years,” according to a summary.
A June 4 Defense Intelligence Agency report, meanwhile, said the Taliban would pursue an incremental strategy of isolating rural areas from Kabul over the next 12 months, according to a summary.
In an “Executive Memorandum” on July 7, the DIA said the Afghan government would hold Kabul, according to a person familiar with the report.
A May 17 report from the CIA determined that the government would fall by the end of the year. Less than a month later an assessment said the Taliban would take full control within two years, the Journal reported.
On June 4, the DIA said the Taliban would adopt a strategy to take and isolate rural areas. Three days later, the DIA said in an executive memo that the government would continue to hold Kabul.
“The intelligence shortfalls underpinned some of the policy failures that resulted in chaotic mass civilian evacuations in the deadly final weeks of the U.S.’s 20-year Afghan war,” the Journal reported.
Far apart from the official intelligence analyses, Kabul would fall to the Taliban on Aug. 15 with former President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the capital as militants closed in.