President Biden Faces Criticism At Method of U.S. Withdrawal

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I think, in assigning blame here, we need to go back 20 years. That’s how long the United States has been there. A lot of mistakes were made from the time we entered Afghanistan. One of the things that’s been consistent, and you have talked a little bit about this with your guest, is that each president, four presidents since we invaded and occupied Afghanistan 20 years ago, have said, we will be leaving, we will be coming out. It is the Afghan people’s decisions to make in what kind of country they want, how do they want to run their country. The history of Afghanistan, we didn’t understand at all. I mean, Afghanistan has never ever been governed by a central government. I mean, the British found that out. The Soviets found that out. Alexander the Great found that out. We never understood the culture, never understood the religion, never understood the tribalism. All the dynamics that make up a culture. And here we are 20 years as a Western power into this country and putting a lot of money in, $2 trillion. Corruption. No secret the Afghan government is one of the most corrupt in the world. So, a lot of mistakes were made by us, by the United States, and I think by the Afghans. The people who got caught in the middle, it’s always the people in the middle who have no say. That’s the unfortunate part of this. Talk about women, girls, rights, education, driving good people, smart people out of their country. That is a consequence, hopefully, that we won’t see to the extreme. But I think you have got a survey and look at, Christiane, the entire last 20 years. One of the big mistakes that we made was we tried to mold an Afghan army in the likes of an American army. Well, that was a mistake. The Afghans’ culture, everything about them are different from us. It doesn’t mean that they’re smarter, not as smart, none of that. But they have to have their own will do the things they want to do for their country, and we’ve got to respect that. I don’t think we ever did respect that enough. We tried to do so much and we did so much. We did so much good in 20 years. But unfortunately, it is where it is today. And that I suspect a lack of planning for the worst. In a situation like this, and fortunately we haven’t been through many of them, but we’ve been through Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, you plan for the worst. And I support President Biden’s decision to leave. Lot of mistakes were made, I think, in the planning for that. Not planning well enough. I don’t know. I wasn’t part of it. So, I don’t know the details. But —

AMANPOUR: Well —

HAGEL: — it’s complicated. It is unfortunate and damn sad.