EXCLUSIVE: Mark Esper on Afghanistan

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What do you believe could have mitigated a total takeover by the Taliban?

MARK ESPER, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, first of all, hello, Christiane. Good to see you again. And it’s a pleasure to be here on the show with you. Let me say that, yes, of course, there were more options between the two binary choices presented by the president. Just better planning and extending the timeline and taking a more thoughtful approach and not relying on simple assumptions would have prevented this disastrous outcome that we’re seeing unfolding behind us right now, before us right now. It’s a humanitarian crisis that I fear is only going to grow worse in the coming days and weeks.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you a very pointed question. Again, President Biden and the U.S. administration is putting the blame squarely on the Afghan government, now fallen, and the Afghan forces, which you have spent, in terms of the United States, 20 years trying to step up, basically saying they had no will, it was their fault, we can’t fight and win for them if they’re not going to fight. Others have pointed out that the Afghan forces have fought and that, just in the last few years alone, they lost a total of 45,000 people. Do you believe that it was entirely the fault of the Afghan forces and government?

ESPER: No, absolutely not, Christiane. Look, clearly, the Afghan people deserve better political leadership than what they have had over the past 20 years. And we saw the Afghan soldiers, many of whom fight bravely on the battlefield with the United States and allied support. But to put this on them is just shifting the blame. The fact is, President Biden owns this. He owns the mess, the catastrophe that has been created over the past several weeks, couple weeks, and should own up to it. And really, at this point, we have to remedy the situation. We have to make sure that the airfield is secured, which I understand it is. But now we have to think about, how do we go out and identify, locate and help bring back the up to 15,000 Americans who are in country, the State Department and other U.S. government employees? We have to think about, how do we bring back our Afghan partners, many who risked their lives for the past two decades to help the United States and its allies? So the president could cut through this paperwork, bring these folks out of the country, and take them to another third country, take them to Guam, wherever. But we need to take care of them. And then we should think about, how do we organize an international effort to really put the pressure on the Taliban to mitigate this emerging humanitarian crisis? And then, finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t say we really need to cobble back together our best intelligent asset — intelligence assets and resources to make sure we know what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan, so it doesn’t once again become a safe haven for terrorists to attack America. After all, that’s the entire reason why we went there in the first place in 2001.