Judy: Last summer, Taliban
fighters swept through
Afghanistan and sees the capital
in a matter of weeks.
How they were able to do so and
why the Afghan military
collapsed so quickly has been
delayed -- debated ever since.
Today, and inspector general
released the first U.S.
Government report on what
happened.
It catalogued years of mistakes.
Reporter: Over 20 years, the
U.S. Spent $90 billion training
Afghanistan forces and gave them
600,000 weapons.
It took the Taliban only 30 days
last summer to capture all 34
provinces.
It was a strategic defeat.
The first U.S. Government report
to talk about it is from an
inspector general for
Afghanistan reconstruction who
joins me now.
Welcome back.
You write that the single most
important factor was the U.S.
Decision to withdraw military
forces and contractors from
Afghanistan from an agreement in
February of 2020.
>> It was a devastating impact
on the morale of the average
soldier.
They felt abandoned by the U.S..
They were left alone.
Reporter: Morality have been low
before that.
There were many Afghan soldiers
complained they were fighting
what was seen as a corrupt
government.
And the Taliban was fighting to
evict foreign forces.
>> This is not to say that the
Afghans did not have problems
before this treaty.
The decision made by the
administration.
What really happened was they
felt essentially that the
Taliban had cut a deal with our
government and to some extent
maybe their own government and
they were left in the lurch.
The average Afghan soldier was
being told by his leadership out
in the provinces that deals have
been cut.
Reporter: Part of the agreements
were withdrawing contractors
specifically.
You quote a former U.S.
Commander telling you that
pulling contractors out was like
pulling all the sticks out of
the pile and expecting it to be
up.
Why were the Afghans so
dependent on contractors?
>> We had given them highly
sophisticated American equipment
and they were not capable of
maintaining that equipment by
themselves.
Reporter: That is indicative of
a longer-term problem of what
has been called mirror imaging.
Creating them in the guise of
U.S. Forces.
Even the structure of the army
itself.
How fatal do you think was that?
>> It was a fatal flaw.
It was something we identified.
They believe in the area of
logistics.
They were horrible.
We gave them a lot of weapons
and bullets and material.
There is no way to the root.
Then the troops are done.
Reporter: Was there an
alternative?
Could the U.S. Have dealt in
Afghan military that was less
mirror image?
>> It could've happened there we
cold've spent more time
building the capability.
That was another problem we
identified in the report.
We had a short turnaround on our
personnel being there.
We did not have a 20 year
strategy in Afghanistan.
We were always rushing to get
out.
Every administration wanted to
get out the strategy was based
on getting out.
What happens is you ignore
things like developing the
operations and all the things
set even army functioning.
Reporter: He mentions the Afghan
government.
Let's talk about some the errors
you identified.
You said loyalists were
appointed and they failed to
create a national security plan.
How important were those
mistakes?
>> By appointing loyalists, he
replaced western trained,
educated, and identified and
recruited.
We headed by these commanders.
But he got rid of them because
he did not trust them.
In the end he became like one of
the senior generals told us,
paranoid.
He was afraid of a two -- coup.
He was replacing them with
former soviet era generals who
had not seen service for 20
years.
They were totally incompetent.
We say in the report that they
never thought the U.S. Was going
to pull the trigger and leave.
They never really planned for
it.
Reporter: One of the factors we
have spoken about over the years
that contributed to what
happened at the end of this war
is civilian death.
Special operations raids.
Do you think this could have
contributed to the long-term
failure?
>> I think so.
I think some of the senior
military officials we have
talked about over the years have
said every time we did a bombing
raid, we killed the wrong
people.
We created more Taliban.
That was happening all over the
country.
They really got worse after the
U.S. Stopped their air missions.
It was basically Afghans doing
it.
Afghans who are not as skilled
and they were sloppy and they
killed a lot of innocent Afghan
men, women, and children.
They drove the rest of their
family members into the
Taliban's grasp.
Reporter: In six weeks it will
of been 10 years since you
started this job.
You have written scores of
reports.
Reports that you have been
ignored.
Do you fear the U.S. Is destined
to make the same mistakes again?
>> I hate to say it, yes.
The senior leaders will tell you
we will never do it again.
That is exactly what we said
after Vietnam.
We did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We are starting to do it in
countries in Africa.
It is a slippery slope when you
start sending it U.S. Military
and equipment and start trying
to re-create a country's or
government in our image area all
we will find ourselves in the
same place.
I'm not saying we do not need to
troops into certain areas around
the world.
But let's think about what we
are doing first.
This learned some lessons area
we have a 20 year long petri
dish.
You can see what happens when we
do not listen to lessons from
the past.
Reporter: Thank you very much.
>> A pleasure.