John Ratcliffe: 'You don't need to be an intelligence expert' to see what happened

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John Ratcliffe: 'You don't need to be an intelligence expert to see what happened'

Former DNI director John Ratcliffe rips Biden for Afghanistan failure

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe joined "America's Newsroom" Thursday and gave his analysis of the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan. Ratcliffe was highly critical of President Biden, arguing he sent mixed messages over the handling of the crisis. 

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JOHN RATCLIFFE: Dana, we had that intelligence when I was DNI. All of the discussions, including with some of the same military leaders that are still there, was if we don’t follow these conditions and the Afghan forces are left on their own how long will this last? The consensus with everyone in the room was not very long. I remember President Trump saying I don’t think they will last two days. So that was why those conditions that Bill mentioned were so important. And look, you don’t need to be an intelligence expert. Look what was happening on the ground. There is 400 districts in Afghanistan. Back in April, the Taliban controlled 77.  By June they controlled over 100. By August they controlled 223. 

So this was happening, and it was apparent what was happening and that's really why everyone is at a loss to explain why the withdrawal has been handled so poorly. Look, for President Biden to say this couldn’t have gone better – I appreciate people don’t like the idea of lobbing grenades at our own Blackhawk helicopters, but that’s a better outcome than leaving the helicopters for the Chinese and the Iranians, which is exactly what has happened.

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