Cheney Criticizes Biden for Afghanistan Withdrawal

On the Brian Kilmeade Show, Representative Liz Cheney talked about how devastating the withdrawal of American forces out of Afghanistan has been for the people there.

"My view has been that having 2,500 to 3,500 U.S. forces on the ground to conduct counterterrorism, counterintelligence, to help us make sure that the Taliban wasn't able to take over, that they weren't able to continue to provide safe havens for al Qaeda, that that was an important deployment for our security, and we've watched just the absolute devastation in the last three or four days because of the determination that we needed to withdraw completely and because of the way that the Biden Administration is conducting the withdrawal."

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Cheney said the withdrawal by the Biden administration has been even worse than when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, while also laying some blame on the previous administration.

"I think that [Biden] ignored the advice of his military leaders. And look, you know, Jake Sullivan is right, this isn't Saigon — it's far worse...The damage to our national security is significant. The prisoners that have been released, the extent to which this is going to change what we have to do in order to keep ourselves safe. Just a massive, massive failure...I think the agreement that the Trump Administration negotiated with the Taliban in 2020 was a surrender agreement, and that created a situation where we were legitimizing the Taliban and shutting out the Afghan government and set us on the path we're on now."

Cheney said there were many ways in which Biden bungled the withdrawal, and that those mistakes will hurt America's image across the world.

"Look, [Biden] bears responsibility for this, he made the decision. Just one example, you know, when they set the date certain of everybody's got to be out by -- I think they said August 31st, ultimately --  you know, that meant that we had to start basically evacuating, turning back over our bases in the country, including Bagram, and the devastation and the tragic scenes that you're seeing today out of the Kabul airport, we wouldn't be seeing that, if we had held on to Bagram...We should not have been withdrawing in the first place, in my view, but the idea that we've got the scenes of death and chaos is really, is just going to be hugely damaging for the United States, globally...So, we've got to, we've got to fix this, it's not going to be easy. It's going to require new leadership for the country, and a new commitment to reasserting America's role in the world and recognizing that weakness is provocative."

Watch the full interview here: