Afghanistan crisis: Afghan army collapse took US by surprise says Defense Secretary Austin

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress on Tuesday that the Afghan army's sudden collapse caught the Pentagon off-guard as he acknowledged miscalculations in America's longest war including corruption and damaged morale in Afghan ranks.

"The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away - in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise," Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Austin was speaking at the start of two days of what are expected to be some of the most contentious hearings in memory over the chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan, which cost the lives of U.S. troops and civilians and left the Taliban back in power.

The Senate and House committees overseeing the U.S. military are holding hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, where Republicans are hoping to zero in on what they see as mistakes that President Joe Biden's administration made toward the end of the two decade-old war.

#Afghanistan #GlobalNews

[robertlordon]

If the Afghan army collapse took these guys by surprise then they are incompetent at their jobs.

[richardthompson]

It was a surprise, but the two top General's testified that they expected this to happen and gave warnings about it.

[bobsinclair]

Those are the faces of losers. Winners don't look like that

[abcdedfg]

Its nice how they didnt mention the US cutting off maintenance for the Afghan air force (even private contractors had to leave), and the subsequent collapse of their supply chain and air support. Its straight out of the 70's when Vietnam fell after the US cut off non-combat military support, and the country fell. They also said the same thing at the time.

[Theoxuesu]

How was this a surprise? They did the exact same thing in Vietnam, as soon as the last of the Americans left in 75' the north absolutely steam rolled the south

[deadnorth]

No... this was clearly by design why would the squad go after the iron dome last week

[bookreaderson]

Basically he’s saying, American, watch ur buts lol

[ares]

If only Biden took half the blame and responsibility these guys took.

[mixhael]

I agree with you Richard Thompson. What is more is that Loyd Austin admits he served in the armed forces in that area. And he is not aware of the morale of the Afghan forces or the deficiencies of the senior leadership??? What the hell did he witness while he was there?

[raajn]

The role of Khalilzad should be investigated.

[Kaywen]

If the Afghan army really wanted to not have the Taliban to take over, they would have fought. They didn't, so they didn't care if Taliban took over or not. Was a waste of time and money training them to do nothing.

[zenasabbagh]

3:15 to 3:25 thats what everyone who have been in the battle field can understand

[timshow]

These are the lambs that WW2 German general was talking about.

[raaid]

Lloyd austic was sitting on the board of raytheon. He made sure the arms manufacturers have made great profits. He is already pushing for more militarization of the indo-pacific in which there has been peace for decades

[romeoramos]

Got our butts kicked, poor execution, intelligence? or just simply ignored what other officers were saying, almost 50 years to get out of the shadows Vietnam, and we're back to square one.

[bookreaderson]

He gettin choked up. Canada 🇨🇦 lost 150 soldiers

[Malik-wjrm]

Kindly resume Federal Skill workers draws

[SonicmanTheBest]

3:05 Notice how there was a dude on his phone.

[noorulamin]

The hearts of Afghan Solders or more correctly to say of every one of us is in the control of Allah.

[WisdomToAll]

Liars just blame on others for rynning away .