John Ratcliffe: Adversaries are going to use Biden's failure as propaganda

russia and china want to take full advantage of the chaos unfolding in afghanistan even as they conduct joint military operations china even plans to formally recognize the taliban as the government of afghanistan you're sitting in beijing and you're sitting in moscow are you happy we left they'd love nothing better for us to continue to be bogged down there totally occupied with what's going on the biggest consequence of all may well be america's waning influence with both allies and enemies joining me now is a former director of national intelligence former member of the house of representatives from the great state of texas john lee radcliffe director radcliff how are you good trey happy birthday thank you the biden administration acts director as if what happened in afghanistan was a surprise i mean you ran our nation's intelligence community is this a failure to collect the necessary intelligence or is it a failure to heed it and act upon it yeah it's been frustrating trade to listen to people on tv talk about an intelligence failure failure you know let me be real clear this was not a failure of intelligence it was a failure uh to listen to intelligence um and unfortunately it's uh it's been a trend in the biden administration they didn't listen to our uh intelligence at our own southern border and created a crisis there they didn't listen to our intelligence uh in the middle east and allowed for an iranian attack on uh iranian back attack on israel so this is just the latest chapter but i can tell you trey when i was director of national intelligence i sat in the situation room in the oval office not just with the president our national security team but with some of the same military officials and folks at the pentagon that are that are still in play with regard to afghanistan and we talked about this kind of outcome not just as a possibility but as a near certainty if there was an unconditional withdrawal but folks don't need to take my word for it you can look at the open source intelligence over the last few months everyone should have seen this coming the taliban of the 400 districts territorial districts in afghanistan the taliban four months ago controlled only 77 of them by june they controlled 110 and by late july they controlled more than half 223 by august 3rd which is why 23 staffers that work for secretary of state blinken at the embassy sent him a cable on july 13th saying the taliban are advancing fast you need to move on this the bind administration didn't do anything so this was not a failure of intelligence it was a failure to act and listen to the intelligence that we had that this was what was going to happen director if i hear you correctly there was a way to withdraw and both president trump and president biden had withdrawal plans there was a way to withdraw and avoid this chaos and carnage that we're currently watching the plan that the trump administration put together was designed exactly to do that and we talk about condition based but one of the last conditions was we never would have gone below 2500 troop level without successful peace negotiations between the taliban and the ghani government now the fact of the matter is we'll never know because the biden administration abandoned the trump plan which is certainly you know this administration's prerogative but if you're going to abandon a plan you should have your own plan and in this case they clearly didn't and exhibit a to the point that the biden administration really had no plan was the fact that there would be no plan so stupid as to leave behind billions of dollars in the best uh military technology and intelligence was exactly what happened when uh when we left the way that we are leaving right now director let me uh let me ask you this outside of afghanistan what impact is is is this withdrawal and the chaos and the carnage having on our allies and our enemies what are they thinking as they watch this unfold well you know for our allies it's as harmful and hurtful as it is for americans to watch this because they stood by us some of the harshest criticism has come from our allies british parliament members said that what joe biden did was cowardly and shameful and angela merkel's likely successor as chancellor said this was the biggest debacle since nato had been formed so these are our friends saying this now as for adversaries they're not saying much because they're pretty happy about this this is like you know this is like christmas in august for the chinese and the russians and iranians who will again get to go down a list of our very best military technology and weaponry and take what they want and of course it's a huge propaganda win they'll use the fact that america lost in afghanistan under joe biden and they'll use that to their advantage but i think the real question and concern that we should have from a national security perspective trey is how are they going to try and take advantage of this in the next three years you know under last time biden was in the white house the russians took crimea um you know i expect you know china to move in the indo-pacific in the south china seas on those islands and territories hopefully not taiwan but everyone needs to be concerned because at the end of the day you know there has to be leadership deterrence and what joe biden has failed to do is show that that there is a red line that someone can't cross you know uh donald trump's harshest critics saw what he did to um abu bakr al-baghdadi and kasim solomoni and that's why the taliban didn't break the agreement that we had reached with them but they did with joe biden is because they think they can get away with whatever they want and and we've got to make sure of the next three years that that we are forward leaning and try to put america's national security posture above everything else well director um i thank you for your service to our country i thank you for joining us on a sunday night and for visiting me in south carolina for the last three days i hope you had a safe flight back to texas look forward to talking to you soon you bet thanks trey hey sean hannity here hey click here to subscribe to fox news youtube page and catch our hottest interviews and most compelling analysis you will not get it anywhere else

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Id: 1AGhohQn48k

Length: 6min 18sec (378 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021